Stop bribing officers with ‘cooldrink money’ – Oshana police commander

Oshana police regional commander commissioner Naftal Sakaria has discouraged members of the public from offering police officers bribes disguised as “cool drink money.”

Speaking to The Namibian in an interview on Thursday, Sakaria said integrity should be displayed by both civilians and members of the police force.

“As a society we don’t want to promote that kind of tendency to turn our country into a banana republic where law enforcement can just be bought with N$200 cooldrink and what not, we need integrity on both sides,” he said.

His comments come after Popular Democratic Movement chief whip Deiderik Vries
said too many officers being implicated in criminal cases were eroding the trust the public has in the police.

Sakaria also weighed in on the suggestion of rotating police officers to different duty stations to avoid law enforcement officers becoming too comfortable with civilians in their jurisdictions.

Sakaria said although reasonable, administratively, such a decision is complicated to achieve.

​Sakaria was responding to a proposal by National Unity Democratic Organisation member of parliament Vetaruhe Kandorozu to rotate police officers to different jurisdictions every year or two. This suggestion follows numerous cases of officers conspiring with criminals in drug and bribery schemes.

Sakaria said rotating officers is easier said than done.

“When police officers are deployed to an area, they are human beings. They get married, have children and buy houses. Now, if you want to move that person from Oshakati to Kavango, you have to provide them with decent accommodation. He or she needs a married quarter,” Sakaria said.

He said there were incidents where police officers refused to be rotated and took the police leadership to court to stop the redeployments.

“What we do in the Oshana region is move members from different stations or specialised units to others, or back to normal station duties such as charge offices and court work. That is something we have been doing a lot,” he said.

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