Commissioner of Police, Edwin Batshu must deal with everything from the growing crime rate, to the growing pile of iddle police badges ÔÇô which can sometimes seem just as urgent -Writes SUNDAY STANDARD REPORTER
Sitting in his office at the heart of the Government Enclave on a Friday morning, Edwin Batshu is taking stock of the Botswana Police Service.
Officers are handing in their badges in droves, which bothers the police chief. “We are losing experienced officers. I understand why they are leaving. The working conditions are horrible.”
Batshu remembers opening the Gaborone CID office door one morning to a police officer who could hardly keep his red puffy eyes open. The CID officer had been up for the past 24 hours and was still counting the hours behind his desk. “We ask them to sacrifice, but they can only sacrifice so much” he says.
A few of those who decide to stay device means to help their paltry paychecks: Take bribes from criminals; break into offices to steal money or connive with criminals to rob businesses, the kind of things he often rails against in meetings. “It’s a shame to the uniform, it’s a shame to the state and it’s a shame to the nation” he sometimes reminds them.
On this morning, end of October, Batshu’s sermons feel shamefully relevant.
About 48 hours before, a Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) sting operation nabbed a police officer who tried to extort a bribe
from a motorist. The police officer and his colleagues had responded to a call by the motorist whose car keys had been stolen by revelers during a midnight binge at a nearby bar. When the officers got to the crime seen, they called the complainant aside, administered him the breathalyzer and decided to book him for drunken driving.
When he resisted arrest they started roughing up, kicking him and pummeling him with fists before throwing him in the back of their van. They kept him in a cell for the night and the following morning gave him the option to either pay a bribe of face a police charge. He played along, promised to pay the bribe.
Instead of going to the bank he headed to the DCEC office.
Batshu has more than 65 000 men under his charge. “Anything that wears a badge, swings a baton or carries handcuffs is Batshu’s responsibility” says one police officer who thinks the Botswana Police Service problems are insurmountable.
“As much as I like Batshu and respect him, there are a whole lot of problems in the Botswana Police Service that he can’t do anything about”, says the police officer who says he is always browsing newspaper advertising pages for security job vacancies.
“The plummeting morale among officers and the fact for example that we are paid far less than our counterparts in the BDF and that he too is paid far less than the army commander suggests that the problem is bigger than him.
In most developed countries, take Britain for example, police officers earn more than army officers because there is an appreciation that we work twenty four seven while soldiers have to twiddle their fingers waiting for war.
Our system has been stood on its head and it will take more than a police commissioner to correct it.”
Nevertheless, if Batswana complain about dangerous streets or have a gripe about lousy police service, there is no misunderstanding who is in charge.
Large posters with Batshu’s smiling face hang on the walls of the Botswana police headquarters, next to the Botswana Police Mission statement promising professional service. But, as speaking to Batshu for a few hours vividly demonstrates, his F1 scale job grows harder by the day.
Growing crime rates, grumpy officers and an under equipped force are adding strains to an already overburdened system.
Batshu knows his performance is being watched not just by Botswana Police Service critics but also by the service’s “customers.” He is responsible
for the safety of more than 1, 5 million citizens and 65 000 men in uniform, if they are unsatisfied, then there’s hell to pay.
Batshu hunches over a clutch of papers on the table as he explains that “we must admit that there is a problem. I have been urging government to attend to the conditions of service with particular reference to the ranks of Sergeant down to Constables.
“Remember, when I took over this office we had set our selves four goals: Crime reduction; community policing; human resource development (capacity building) and improving facilities and support groups.”
“As far as crime is concerned, it’s a challenge, but I think we have managed crime although we are still not happy.
“When it comes to community policing, we have done exceptionally well, our record is unsurpassed. Our public outreach programs are bearing fruits.
It is human resource development that is giving Batshu a headache. Most police officers are turning up their noses at their paltry paychecks and trading their police tunics for civilian clothes. “This is going to give me a heart attack. The rate of astage is just too high. Police are badly paid and their job is demanding. This is a problem that has taken us a long time to deal with.”
Government however came up with an unconventional solution. It decided to add camouflage uniforms to make up the numbers and strengthen Botswana Police Service capacity.
Initially this was supposed to be a stop gap measure. Ten years since the first camouflage Land Rover Defender truck started patrolling the streets of Gaborone and neighboring villages the Botswana Defence Force has moved visibly into mainstream policing: Green berets man roadblocks, mount searches for illegal immigrants and police the streets at night. When the crime statistics refused to come down, government threw untrained special constables into the mix.
What happened next suggests that the adventure did not fully grasp how easily things could go wrong.
University of Botswana Lecturer, Mpho Molomo in his research paper “Civil Military relations in Botswana’s Developmental State” observes that, “strong arguments have been presented against deploying the military in civilian or police type operations on the grounds that it would lead to
praetorianism.
First the military is not trained or equipped to deal with civilian operations. Their involvement in such operations opens up the possibility that they can use excessive force, which would undermine their image and credibility.
In fact, there are already disquieting allegations of assault, torture and killings of suspects under interrogation by the military intelligence unit of the BDF.”
Batshu makes no secret of the fact that the Botswana Police service never asked for BDF assistance although he is diplomatic about it. “We never asked for BDF assistance, but then government could not stand aside and watch as things go out of hand. One way or the other, they have helped us.”
He however agrees that, “the army’s rules of engagement are different from that of the police. The army officers are trained to use maximum force while police officers are trained to use minimum force. He does not want to discuss what he refers to as “the Ramotswa issue.”
By the Ramotswa issue he is referring to a recent incident where a patrol team of Special Constables and BDF officers forced Zimbabwean illegal immigrants to have sex at gunpoint.
Henk and Molomo also argue that the deployment of the BDF in policing activities has reduced the government’s incentive to take the difficult measures necessary to strengthen the anticrime capabilities of the Botswana police.
It is thus not surprising that although the Botswana police are still struggling to keep pace with high crime rates, they continue to receive less financial support compared to the BDF.
This probably explains why Batshu seems to have difficulties this morning, explaining how he has fared on the fourth promise he made when he took office: Improving facilities.
Batshu and his predecessor, Norman Moleboge have spent years knocking on the door of the Minister of Finance and Development Planning asking for money to set up an air arm.
No prize for guessing what the response was: Why set up an air arm when you can use BDF planes and helicopters whenever there is a need for air operations.
“But I can now assure you that things are moving, we will have an air arm soon”, Batshu assures me. “Soon” may be too generous a prediction.
All Batshu has to his hope is a consultancy report in his drawer, and a task team of Botswana Defence Force and Botswana Police Services that has been set up to come up with recommendations of how to establish the air arm.
Batshu still has to tread the beaten path to minister Gaolathe’s office for funds to finance the project.
“It is not only the air arm I am talking about, there have also been a number of police stations coming up. Government has really tried to assist us; the problem has been with the building contractors commissioned to build the projects.
For example we have been waiting for 25 officers houses in Molepolole for years because the building contractor is failing us.”
Although Batshu confesses that the poor working conditions of his charges weigh heavily on him, he knows how to crack the whip. Not long ago he found out that some of his officers who were manning a road block tried to extort a bribe from a motorist; they en were swiftly fired.
A total of 63 police officers are currently on interdiction out of a total workforce of 65 000 officers, which is only 0,09 percent. Batshu however says one man in uniform committing a crime is one man too many. “It is a shame. It is a shame to the uniform, the nation and the state.
These men have taken solemn vows to uphold and enforce the laws of this country. They should not be the ones breaking them. You need to be a police officer to know how it feels when you hear that another police officer has committed a crime.”
Batshu has also recently started engaging motivational speakers to try and raise staff morale and has introduced refresher courses to train Special Constables.
“There is already a programme to convert a number of special constables to regular police officers” he says Lately Botswana police has been posting hair raising figures of armed robberies especially using guns from neighboring countries, suggesting a growing trend in transnational organized crime.
With landlocked Botswana sharing a 1500 plus kilometer border with South Africa, a 1100 plus kilometer border with Namibia and an 800 plus kilometer border with Zimbabwe, Batshu has a more difficult task containing transnational organized crime compared to his counterparts in the region who have more resources and are better paid.
But money or no money, he has to plan for any eventuality and this morning he is already thinking of how he is going to deal with the fallout of the South African 2010 World Cup. It remains to be seen if he will stay long enough.
