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Police chief national spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba parades Wadzanai Mabika, the fugitive kombi driver who struck and killed a Girls High School pupil last month before fleeing to South Africa. — (Picture by Beauty Muchakazi)

There was a time soon after independence when the Zimbabwe Republic Police used to conduct PR programmes to promote its work. It built a great reputation as the people’s police force.

They were known to assist people seeking directions to different destinations or those who were lost. Given the number of criminals associated with urban life, a police officer was the most trusted person to ask for directions. They were kind and honest. They were indeed the people’s police force.

Not much of that remains now.

The reflexive reaction when one sees police officers nowadays is to look for the nearest turn-off on the road. People are scared of the ZRP, or hate the police and would rather avoid them at all costs unless and until a direct encounter with them is unavoidable. It is a very sad development.

Things have changed dramatically over the years. Today, the ZRP is almost akin to corruption. Much of that reputation has been earned in the area of traffic policing where ZRP officers are routinely accused of demanding and receiving bribes, particularly from unruly and disorderly commuter omnibus drivers and their uncouth touts.

Ordinary motorists also don’t have positive reflection on the police. Talk of the numerous often inexplicable roadblocks which add to the many inconveniences associated with driving on our roads today. The police demand so much by way of vehicle accessories motorists are left feeling like it was an offence to own and drive a motor vehicle.

Then they demand a spot-fine for not carrying the “correct” type of fire extinguisher or spare-wheel, items rarely associated with causing traffic accidents. Cumulatively, all this makes for an unsavoury image of the ZRP which tends to cloud and overshadow the marvellous work they do when they stick to the call of duty; something they just demonstrated in the past few days.

On May 24, Zimbabweans woke to the tragic news of the death of 17-year-old Joceyln Gomba, a Form 4 student at Girls High School in Harare. She had been knocked down and killed the previous day by a kombi driving against a One-Way.

The accident happened at an undesignated pick-up point at the corner of Leopold Takawira Street and Park Lane near Girls High School, a fairly open area. However, that did not prevent the driver of the kombi, one Wadzanayi Mabika, turning fugitive from justice by vanishing into thin air.

It was left to the Zimbabwe Republic Police to piece together bits of information, starting from establishing ownership of the vehicle to eventually tracking Mabika to Polokwane, South Africa, where he was arrested this week and brought back to answer for his conduct.

He is currently assisting the police with their investigations. That is the Zimbabwe Republic Police we know. Well done.

Unfortunately that is not the full story. Following the accident which took Jocelyn’s life, there were protests by fellow students and the Harare City Council declared that the kombis had been banned from the area. They apparently enlisted the support of the ZRP to enforce that ban.

For two days there appeared to be some order. All that is gone. It’s back to the old disorderly ways again. The kombis are back with a vengeance like the seven biblical evil spirits. Nobody seems to remember Joceyln. It is business as usual, until another accident happens.

Are the ZRP officers being bribed again by kombi drivers and their touts or is it all because we have such short memories of tragedy as a nation?