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Tanzania: This is Expecting Too Much of Police
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
EDITORIAL
9 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Some of the things happening in this country today defy explanations.
How would anybody in his or her right senses expect a Tanzanian police officer, whose basic monthly salary is less than Sh100,000, to be sent by his seniors, at his own expense, to arrest a suspect from another region and claim reimbursement of his expenses later.
This is shocking.
As if that is not enough, the police officers say they also have to meet the expenses of the suspects they arrest.
This compounds their financial woes because they are some of the most lowly paid government employees.
The deputy minister for Home Affairs, Mr Khamis Kagasheki, who heard this from Bukoba police officers, expressed his shock and utter surprise, saying that throughout his entire working life in government service, he never ever imagined that such a thing would happen in Tanzania.
The officers told the deputy minister that whenever they followed up reimbursement of expenses incurred in dealing with suspects, the authorities were reluctant to pay up.
It took ages as the claimants were tossed from one office to another in pursuit of refunds, without any success.
That explains why corruption will be very difficult to eradicate.
Forcing a police officer to pay his own transport cost and that of a suspect he is taking from one region to another is never done even in countries where the police can afford to meet such expenses.
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Why should we place such a burden on our policemen?
We are gratified to hear that Minister Kagasheki promised to act on these complaints.
Such outstanding transport claims due to the policemen should be settled immediately and this ridiculous arrangement stopped.
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