Minerals Section Police officers demoted and transferred over allege corruption

Unconfirmed information from reliable sources within the Zimbabwe Republic Police in Gwanda indicate that all officers deployed to the Minerals Department have been recalled from that section amid claims of massive corruption by the officers.

The reports claim that all the officers in the gold and minerals sections were last week recalled from the section and redeployed in the lower ranked departments in the force or out rightly deployed to smaller rural police posts. The sources indicate that the officers were recalled after discoveries that almost all of them were involving themselves in corrupt activities by accepting bribes in cash or gold from illegal gold miners and dealers they would have apprehended.

The sources claim that the officers are all living a life way above their income a clear indication that they have a huge income base where they are making lots of money.

"You don't need to ask that the officers are corruptly making money from other sources. They are all building huge houses, drive luxury cars and own taxis and kombis which some of us in the force can't afford from the salaries we earn," said the source.

Gwanda district is by far the busiest informal and illegal gold mining area in the country and the police gold section in the district is arguably the busiest with several arrests of illegal miners being made.

One illegal miner interviewed in Gwanda confessed that indeed the police are making them pay hugely for them to continue mining without arrest. "We are almost as good as working for the police because they take a bigger portion of the gold than we do," said the miner.

"We literally work under police supervision as the police monitor us to see how much gold we bring out and they always take almost half of the output while we remain sharing the other half between a lot more of us."