18 Feb 2016

Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi, has warned the police against wrecking their limited fleet.

Minister Kgathi sounded the warning bells at the 44th Botswana police senior officers annual conference in Gaborone on Tuesday. 

In 2014, he said, 376 road accidents involving police vehicles were recorded and out of this, 133 police drivers were at fault. They were charged accordingly. In 2015, a further 441 accidents were recorded and 122 police drivers were at fault while in January 2016 alone, 29 accidents were recorded and 13 police officers were at fault and charged.

This month, nine cases were recorded and six police officers were at fault. Minister Kgathi said the southern division had the highest number of accidents recorded in 2014 followed by south central.

He said he was concerned that the police failed in their efforts at reducing crime due to lack of transport that was rendered unusable by “our own doing”.  Minister Kgathi said most of the police vehicles, which were involved in road traffic accidents, were the small utility vehicles that could go through narrow thoroughfares and were affordable to purchase.

He challenged members of Botswana Police Service to have a dream of taking their institution to a desired future through professionalism.  He said they should endeavour to work closely with the community they served.

Meanwhile, he decried the ever growing cases of stock theft, noting that police had turned into herd boys as they had to look after live cattle exhibits as well as drive away stray cattle along high ways.  He said the ministry of agriculture should come on board to help on how to best solve this teething cattle problem.

Minister Kgathi said the  conference came at a time when the nation was about to celebrate a much more significant milestone being the 50th anniversary of independence.  The conference was to review policing strategies as well as share ideas on performance management. Ends