Last year government set up the Traffic Fund where the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning will be the accounting officers, with 50 percent of the funds accruing to the police and the rest to the Ministry of Finance. The establishment of the fund followed the introduction of steep traffic penalties last year. However that has all changed, and now the police pocket it all.
The police make some P200,000 a week on average or something in excess of P12 million in a year from traffic fines, the minister responsible Dikgakgamatso Seretse explained in a brief interview with the Monitor last week at the Grand Palm where he launched the roll out of a new community policing project, Volunteer Policing Project, which will consume part of the funds. The decision to let the police keep all the money comes at a time when the government has been scratching its head trying to find sources of funds to implement the community policing project early in the year. Hundreds of youths were recruited into the new community police across the country but the initiative never took off due to lack of funds, until government decided that the police use the traffic fines to run the program, among others.
