By Cde Honest Vhura Hombe
At the launch of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Client Service Charter, commissioner general Stephen Mutamba finally said the quiet part out loud that the police are decaying from the inside.
A public secret, now officially public.
For years, the force denied the obvious, perfecting the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil policing doctrine while corruption enjoyed VIP protection.
Roadblocks have long stopped being about traffic and started operating as special toll gates for the men in traffic uniforms.
Reporting a crime now requires a budget.
True Patriots, the police, once meant to protect citizens, are routinely deployed as a private militia for the rich, the powerful, and the politically connected.
The Client Service Charter sounds noble on paper—much like past reforms that died at the printing press.
Mutamba appealed for citizen input and floated “new” ideas such as officers wearing name tags for easy identification.
This groundbreaking proposal was first suggested sometime in the Stone Age and is already standard practice globally.
Locally, it was ignored—presumably because anonymous policing is more efficient for anonymous misconduct.
Body cameras, another global norm, were once again missing from the reform menu.
Accountability, it seems, remains optional.
Modern policing thrives on visibility, professionalism, and trust.
The ZRP, however, has treated these concepts like foreign agents.
Police stations are now whispered about with the same tone reserved for back-alley deals, a reality Mutamba cautiously acknowledged—while disinfecting the truth for public consumption.
Citizens who attended the launch were unimpressed.
They’ve seen this movie before.
Same script, new title.
Many accused the police boss of being economical with the truth—Zimbabwe’s most renewable resource.
For now, ordinary citizens wait to see whether this promised transformation will be real or just another charter filed under fiction.
Few are holding their breath.
