The money does not reflect on the officers’ payslips but is paid as cash, with a source revealing that the traffic details are paid $600 every Monday.
This has caused outrage among those of the 30,000 strong ZRP who are not benefitting. Highly placed sources told The Zimbabwean that morale in the force was at its lowest due to disparities in earnings following the introduction of the allowance.
“Imagine members of the National Highway Traffic Police operating on vehicles and motorbikes, being paid a monthly $1,200 retention allowance on top of their salaries while other members of the force earn as little as $400, including housing and transport allowances.
‘’We were told that the awarding of such a scandalous allowance was justified since the Highway Police Team was generating massive revenue for the force. The excuse does not hold water since beneficiaries do not work in isolation,” said a disgruntled senior policeman not entitled to the lucrative allowance.
“Each Mercedes Benz and BMW traffic crew cashes in about $2,000 every day. The motor bike teams pour $1,500 each into the police coffers daily. District Foot Highway Traffic Police details have a daily $1,000 target to meet. At the end of each day, more than $130,000 would have found its way into the police coffers. The revenue is not managed by the government national treasury but kept at the Police Headquarters for unclear use,” said the source.
Despite the revenue collected so far running into millions of dollars, the police had nothing to show for it save for a few Ranger and Land Rover trucks distributed to a limited number of stations, he added.
Recently, Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, lambasted the police and the Registrar General’s office for not surrendering collected revenue to the treasury.
Traffic police spokesperson for Harare, Ass Insp Luckmore Chakanza, referred questions to national deputy spokesperson, Supt Andrew Phiri, who asked this reporter to call after 30 minutes, after which he was not responding to calls.
Post published in: News