28 Oct 2013

Botswana Police Service (BPS) has launched the 60 days of action on crime and road safety campaign themed: Towards a Safe and Secure Festive Season, which will start on Friday (Nov 1) until December 31.

Speaking at the launch ON Friday, October 25, acting Commissioner of Police, Mr Tapudzani Gabolekwe said the campaign encouraged the public to take appropriate measures to enhance their safety and security and hence paying attention to personal security, home security, personal valuable security and vehicle security among others.

Thus, he urged communities to take responsibilities for their own lives on the road by not drinking and driving, avoid speeding and also obey road signs. He said human and material resources will be strategically positioned to execute preventive patrols as well as provide educational campaigns.

The acting commissioner said they will be staging road shows countrywide which will bring attention of the public to the devastating effects of crime and road accidents. Again, he said they recently adopted a zero tolerance approach to crime, saying “we have taken an initiative to capacitate all uniformed officers to professionally and promptly attend to road traffic accidents without having to refer or wait for traffic officers.”

He also informed the meeting that the campaign was a result of criminal incidents as well as road accidents which occurred particularly at the end of the year. He indicated that the end of the year was therefore a critical period for law enforcement agencies because it was during such time that the nation experienced an increase in crime and road traffic accidents.

On one hand, he said criminals were aware that people tended to accumulate more money in preparation for the long holidays. He added that during festive season major chain stores and businesses were targeted by criminals while more people were also swindled of their hard earned property through fraudulent means.

However, he indicated that there had been an upsurge in violent and intrusive crime where the business community was targeted in July and August this year. He noted that they did well in their detection rate because over 80 per cent of the criminal syndicates involved in those crimes had been arrested.

Furthermore, he said there had also been an upsurge in the number of fatalities on the roads this year with a total of 322 deaths recorded compared to 308 last year. Thus, he said the police needed to depend on partnerships with other institutions such as the media to help drive the message to the people and effect the necessary influence. ENDS