Kgathi shamed by reckless police drivers
Bonte Seepi | Friday September 22, 2017 16:09
Spitting fire at a recent meeting in Palapye, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, began by saying he was worried and frustrated by the many accidents caused by the police due to reckless driving.
He admonished the officers who he said recklessly caused road accidents while using government vehicles. The North Central Division (Number 2 District) officers sat in rapt attention in Palapye on Monday, as Kgathi fired salvo after salvo on the cops for continuing to cause road accidents using police vehicle, saying that the issue needed to be addressed urgently before it “totally gets out of control’”
“Some of you have developed an unpleasant tendency of not taking proper care of government police vehicles. Some of you drive police cars recklessly as if they are not custodians of the law.. “The habit of causing road accidents using police cars must come to an end because you are destroying the very same vehicles that you should use to perform your duties. You then surprisingly complain that you have no vehicles to serve the community. As your minister, I am extremely ashamed of your actions,” Kgathi said.
Kgathi, who is also the Bobonong Member of Parliament (MP), revealed that every month, each ministry and department presents the number of accidents caused by its employees while on duty.
He added that it is a shame that officers under his ministry, the police being the chief culprits, commit 99% of these accidents.
Kgathi noted that his ministry is the only one that has recorded 38 accidents in August, adding that police officers were responsible for causing most of the mishaps. He bemoaned that some of the police officers who caused the accidents do not report them, hence no action has been taken against perpetrators. Furthermore, Kgathi said from January to August this year, the number of accidents caused by police officers using police vehicles stood at 205 with the Number 3 District being the highest with 24 accidents.
He said the Number 2 district has recorded 11 accidents with Palapye leading with five. The minister explained that amongst various police units, officers from the Special Support Group (SSG) have committed most of the accidents.
“Driving a police vehicle doesn’t give anyone the right not to abide by the Road Traffic Act. If police officers can’t observe simple rules, how do you expect civilians to observe those rules? I urge you to refrain from driving police cars while you know that you fraudulently obtained your driver’s licence,” he warned. Members of the community, Kgathi said, are even complaining about the arrogance and recklessness with which some police officers are driving. Kgathi, who was clearly upset by the conduct of his officers, even went a step further by threatening to publish the names of police officers who caused accidents in newspapers if the issue does not abate since some police officers are involved in car accidents using police cars every month.
If the police officers do not drive carefully, Kgathi said, they will eventually have to carry out their duties without using cars since government cannot keep on replacing cars that were damaged intentionally. However, Kgathi stated that with everything he said, he did not imply that police officers should be lax. He urged them to work hard to arrest wrongdoers, adding that only a few police officers are tarnishing the good image of the police service. In response, Palapye police station commander, Superintendent Waboraro Ramaja assured Kgathi that they would try by all means to rectify the anomalies that Kgathi identified. He said that it is indeed a shame that instead of enforcing the law, some officers are also implicated in wrongdoing.
On a another issue,, Ramaja appealed to the minister to consider renovating the old Palapye police station to increase law enforcement since crime is escalating in the village due to the ongoing developments like construction of shopping malls and residential areas at Extensions 10 and 11. He said the developments were now attracting cases of numerous break-ins in his policing area.