Two ways to end corruption in Zimbabwe

THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I thought it is under your Ministry.

HON. KAZEMBE: Yes Madam President, the Police is under the Ministry but what I am not aware of is the price that we scooped.  Maybe it is on its way.  Nonetheless, I got the gist of the question which I will respond to.  Yes, corruption is indeed a scourge, it is totally unacceptable and I do admit that we do have some rogue cops amongst the police.  Not every cop is corrupt but definitely yes, that issue is there and is a challenge.  Corruption is totally unacceptable everywhere, whether it happens at the police or in any other Ministry or the private sector, corruption is there and we are saying it is not acceptable and is illegal, we must deal with it.

There are two ways of dealing with corruption, I have said it before and I will say it again.  The first one is that there is no way one person can be corrupt by themselves, it takes two or more people to be corrupt. This then points at us as citizens; we are also aiding corruption, police cannot be corrupt themselves, but they are corrupt because they are being paid by us.  If we all take a collective responsibility and say to ourselves we do not want corruption, it will end today because nobody will be prepared to be corrupt or offer a bribe to a police officer.  Everyone will become a police officer, policing another police officer if we all say no to corruption, starting today Madam President.

What normally happens, for instance if it is a traffic offence or there is a roadblock, police officers at times are offered – it is us the citizens who offer first to say ‘aah, wangu hapana zvatingaite here pano.’ (my dear, can we not do something here.)  We do that and obviously it gives us some challenges that we are encountering, they will accept.  Sometimes it is the police officer who starts but it is because we are accepting to give them the bribes.  I am saying the starting point, all of us as Zimbabweans, let us say no to corruption and let us take it upon ourselves to expose corruption.  Where corruption has been exposed, we have dealt with it, we have arrested police officers, there is no one who is above the law but it takes you and me to deal with it collectively. That is one way of dealing with it.

Secondly, I am sure if the Hon. Senator was listening to Hon. Minister Mutsvangwa when she gave the Cabinet briefing, she talked about the direction that we have taken of introducing technology.  To me or in accordance with my school of thought, that is the way to deal with corruption. Let us remove the human element. While there is the structure that was approved by Cabinet -where we are going to be installing traffic management systems, those in my view will remove the human interface. You cannot bribe technology, neither can it go for tea. We are deploying that system which will ensure that those who speed and those who cross red robots and all those who misbehave – the system is so complex and sophisticated such that it can pick a lot of offences.  As it will be linked to ZINARA and Civil Registry, it will be an integrated solution. If you commit an offence today, because it includes facial recognition cameras, it is able to pick up your registration number and your face. Your face will be linked to the database at the national centre which is linked to Civil Registration. So we can tell who you are, even your family and or your girlfriends. We can tell from the database.

From there Madam President, we will link you to ZINARA so that if you pick up the registration number we can tell who the owner of the vehicle is. So it will all be integrated. Even the police officer is there, the technology will have captured everything and automatically you will be fined. In short Madam President, I believe technology is the way to go.

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