The police force, hit hard by massive resignations and desertions over poor pay and working conditions over the past eight years, is struggling to maintain adequate staff levels.
Sources said despite an aggressive recruitment drive launched late last year, the law enforcement agency failed to meet a target of 27 000 new recruits.
We are still losing more people. So instead of increasing the number of officers as per our plan, we are actually down to fewer men. We might be down to as much as 20 000 men by the time of the election, said a senior officer in the police human resources department.
Police officers, who numbered about 25 000 last year, are among the lowest paid civil servants with the lowest ranked officer earning about Z$200 million per month.
The sources said because of the very low response to job adverts, police authorities now planned to lower the entry educational requirements to attract more recruits.
The police require a minimum five passes at Ordinary Level including Mathematics and English for one to qualify for training.
Police spokesman, Oliver Mandipaka yesterday confirmed that recruitment of new officers had been slow but insisted various ways were being worked out to ensure adequate officers were available during next month’s elections.
Mandipaka said: We are working on ensuring that we have adequate officers for the election. There are various ways of achieving this without necessarily compromising quality.
Graduates of the national training service have always had first preference. Those who don’t have adequate requirements join as volunteers, while those who qualify will join as regular recruits.
Zimbabwe holds local government, parliamentary and presidential elections on March 29.
Zimbabwe’s elections have since the 1999 emergence of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party been accompanied by widespread politically motivated violence, lawlessness and human rights abuses, largely blamed on militant supporters of the ruling ZANU PF party.
Post published in: News