Policing the police
Mmegi Editor | Tuesday September 26, 2017 11:48
From describing the situation as “most frustrating and disappointing,” in January, Kgathi on Thursday said he felt “shamed,” after revealing that in August alone 38 police vehicle accidents were recorded.
“Some of you drive police cars recklessly as if you are not custodians of the law,” Kgathi told senior officers at a recent meeting.
According to available data, police vehicles were involved in 376 accidents in 2014, rising to 441 in 2015 and 414 in 2016. Between January and August this year, 205 accidents have occurred, many of these preventable with due care and attention.
These statistics will come as no shock to road users who have become accustomed to the reckless, devil-may-care attitude many police officers display behind the wheel.
Kgathi’s outrage will also be cold comfort to motorists and pedestrians alike, who live with the threat posed by reckless police officers on a daily basis.
Many police drivers are a law unto themselves on the roads, holding themselves to an authority unknown by the rest of the motoring public. The situation gets worse on the highways, where police are clearly more equal than others, breaking traffic laws with seeming impunity and a brazenness rarely seen outside of action movies.
It is not in doubt that by the nature of their job, police do occupy a rank of priority in the pyramid of road users. Be that as it may, however, many of these accidents take place in situations where there is no emergency and are as a result of reckless driving by an officer labouring under the view that they are superior to other motorists and traffic rules.
Besides their arrogant attitude, it is evident that many police officers behave the way they do because they do not directly feel the impact of the loss of vehicles as a result of reckless driving.
As is so often the case, government assets are abused and the miscreants get away with filing a report that is never reviewed. The taxpayers are the ones stuck with the bill at the end of the day, paying either directly or by foregoing other services and enhancements in law enforcement.
Kgathi says the Police Commissioner, Permanent Secretary and the Minister are accountable for the accidents ultimately to Cabinet and Parliament, but officers and their supervisors should be made accountable too, especially where evidence points to a highly preventable accident. In the era of declining government revenues, cost-recovery should not only be about Batswana paying more for government services, but civil servants being more responsible with the little resources we have.
Today’s thought
“He who knows more is more responsible”
- Alireza Salehi Nejad