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Where is also the conscience to the powers that be and, what should it take to repair the nation’s standing? This lack of conscience where some among us don’t care about the net result of their actions and their implications is costing the nation heavily.

On Monday, we got a love letter from the power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority telling the nation the all too familiar story — more power cuts and that it might take until January to normalise the problem.

Who hasn’t heard that before, and what has really changed? Instead, service provision is declining at an alarming pace!

An observer who declined to be named remarked, “Big deal! What’s new in whatever they are trying to tell us through the never ending Press releases? In other countries when an important service provider that is supposed to power the economy fails the nation this much, what the whole pack would have done would be to have the decency to resign, and if they refused, they’d have been shown the door out. In short, fired!”

When a nation sees this kind of erosion of values on a continual basis and when they see the unusual being accepted as the norm, you start to have questions, and too many for that matter. Provision of power and energy is just one of them.
But I digress. Let me zero in on law enforcement agents and the current operation against commuter omnibus companies.

The Sunday Mail of November 25 had a story: “20 000 touts arrested”. That is a big number considering that the operation started in September. The operation codenamed “Siirayi Mabhazi” has also netted more than US$386 000.

In-between the figures and the heavy police presence, have things really changed since September?
There are mixed feelings about these operations depending on your mode of transport. Generally speaking, commuters feel that they have become the grass that suffers when elephants fight.
They feel shortchanged that despite the heavy presence of police officers on almost every street, commuter omnibuses continue to overcharge them.

There is no mechanism in place to ensure that commuter omnibuses charge justifiable fares. Conductors demand US$1 per trip from passengers, even if there are policemen or policewomen on board.

In most cases, kombi crews harass commuters and officers say nothing. As commuters we start to question the meaning of these relationships and the actual law enforcement.

Although I have seen, read and experienced a lot regarding these operations, Monday (November 26) afternoon’s experience was classical, but maybe not unique.
Around 3pm, I got interested in a commuter omnibus (registration number recorded) which was loading passengers to Mufakose at the corner of Chinhoyi and Albion Streets. From what I gathered, this has never been a designated loading bay.

Someone wearing a police uniform (navy trousers and cap, grey jersey and short sleeved shirt) was on the drivers’ seat and calling out to the conductor to quickly load the passengers because he intended to proceed to Mhondoro that day.

It was not yet peak hour, but the fare was US$1 per passenger. There was no reprieve for those travelling shorter distances that normally pay four or five rand per passenger.

This was naturally interesting because apart from the current blitz on commuter omnibuses and the rule that they should load on designated points, the only time you see a police officer behind the wheel of a commuter omnibus is when the said kombi is being impounded.

It’s not a common phenomenon in Harare which has the largest number of commuter omnibuses and police officers to see someone dressed as a police officer behind the wheel and shouting out for commuters just like rank marshals — the very issues the Zimbabwe Republic Police is aiming to eradicate.

Not so long ago, some touts publicly wept in court when they were given three-month jail sentences. So why should someone who has been arresting those rank marshals acting like one?

Why was a policeman breaking the law that he is expected to enforce? Why was he loading commuters at an illegal point?

When it is like this, you tell yourself that age-old adage, “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back”. Was this really a policeman breaking the law in broad daylight or it was a decoy?
I had such questions because I thought that with so much happening in the country, it could be a rogue officer wearing police garb in order to evade the many roadblocks. I sat on one of the front seats to be certain about the many issues that were not adding up. I ascertained that his uniform had ZRP marked on it. But I still wondered whether he was checking on something? Was he investigating on what other officers were doing while on road patrols?

However, the conversation with the young man who was the “actual” driver left many passengers shocked. He boasted to the “actual” driver about the many times he had actually evaded police at some roadblocks.

I again wondered whether this was a kombi driver who had stolen a police officer’s uniform because what he said was disgraceful to the image of the Zimbabwe Republic Police.

Even the VID were not spared. He boasted that he knew how to deal with them. It was fun for him and the other young man, while passengers wondered how a true police officer could brag so openly about how he broke the laws of the land.

When we got to the Rugare/Njanike bus terminus he stopped and disembarked. Then, I asked why the policeman was driving the commuter omnibus.

The driver answered, “Why not if he has got a driver’s licence? What if it is his minibus, what should stop him from driving? If he is coming from work, why should he not? There are so many of them doing it. Why didn’t you ask him when he was here, and more?”

I bring this to the attention of Zimbabwe because it is not often that such incidents happen. There is a lot of acrimony between kombi crews and commuters; kombi crews and the police.

If policemen can be kombi drivers in police uniforms and also behave like touts, and load passengers at undesignated areas, what is operation “Siiyirai Mabhazi” for? Where do we draw the line?

The passengers who were driven to Rugare on Monday want answers from ZRP. The public also needs to know because there are times when kombi crews boast that they are untouchables since their kombis are owned by well connected people.

What is the point of the law if the very people who should enforce it can break it? The flip side is, are certain people above the law? And, if all off-duty police officers still in their uniforms were to be engaged as kombi drivers, would operation “Siirayi Mabhazi” work?