Some police officers in
Swaziland / eSwatini are forced to walk to crime scenes because the government
has not paid for cars.
A police spokesperson said
the shortage of cars and other equipment was because of the kingdom’s continuing
economic crisis.
A police post was opened at
Ngudzeni about a year ago but it still does not have a vehicle, the Times of Swaziland reported. It said,
‘Officers stationed at the police post are forced to either walk to crime scenes
or to wait for a day or so in order to get the lone vehicle that was allocated
to the nearby Dumako Police Post.’
The Times reported a
source, ‘made the example of a recent murder incident where the area’s
community police were asked to keep watch over a corpse for the whole night
because the police had no vehicle to attend to the crime scene.’
It added, ‘Even the suspect
in the gruesome murder was conveyed to the police post by a local motorist,
using his own vehicle.’
Chief Police Information
and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati told the newspaper the
police force faced challenges, ‘which she attributed to government’s obtaining
economic crisis’.
Ngudzeni is not the only
area in Swaziland, where King Mswati III rules as an absolute monarch, where
police are without vehicles. In August 2018 it was reported police in the Siteki area were forced
to walk or hitch-hike to crime and accident scenes because the government had
not paid for fuel or vehicle repairs. Traffic officers used their personal vehicles
to mount road blocks.
In May 2018 it was reported
that Swaziland was so short of resources that police were unable to secure
voter registration centres in the runup to national elections and do their
routine work at the same time. Police officers were said to have been left
stranded at registration centres in the evenings because there were no vehicles
available to take them home.
Police were unable to
respond when a five-year-old was abducted and raped because they were on
election duty, according to the Swazi Observer at the time.
It said a toddler was with her mother at Mahlalini, an area in the outskirts of
Nhlangano, when a man grabbed her and disappeared into a thicket where he raped
her.
Swaziland is broke and seven
in ten of Swaziland’s estimated 1.3 million population live in abject poverty
with incomes less than the equivalent of US$2 per day. King Mswati has 13
palaces, two private jets and fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars.
The King wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit
beaded with diamonds weighing 6 kg, at his 50th
birthday party in April 2018. Days earlier he took delivery of his second
private jet, a A340 Airbus, that after VIP upgrades
reportedly cost US$30 million. He received E15 million (US$1.2
million) in cheques, a
gold dining room suite and a gold
lounge suite among his birthday gifts.
See also
Food
collection points set up in Swaziland as hospital patients unfed after Govt
fails to pay suppliers
Gap between rich and poor in Swaziland continues to
grow, Finance Minister reports
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