Crime rate has gone down in Tanzania , says police chief Sirro

 Dar es Salaam. Police have given reasons that contributed to encountering many challenges in the area of civilian security. According to Inspector General of Police (IGP) Simon Sirro, road accidents have decreased from 91,908 in 2011/15 to 24,339 in 2016/2020, which is equivalent to a decrease of 73.5 percent.

The IGP also explained that his force had managed to reduce the number of deaths caused by road accidents from 17,872 to 10,220, equivalent to a decrease of 42.8 percent while the number of casualties going down from 82,854 to 24,283, equivalent to a decrease of 70.7 percent.

The country’s police force boss made the statement in an exclusive interview he granted to The Citizen reporter at the Police Force headquarters in Dar es Salaam on August 13. In the interview, IGP Sirro spoke on a number of issues including preparations of the upcoming General Election, achievements, politics, ethics, corruption and abductions.

“There are a number of achievements.

You know our main task is to ensure security,” said IGP Sirro while claiming that the achievements were pestered with in-house training of police officers.

“The decrease in crime and accidents was due to training. For example, our officers have now changed a lot about the issue of investigations. This is because when an incident occurs, an officer will not delay to be on the scene.

Even the offences of financial crime have decreased as well by 40.8 percent,” said the IGP.

“The decrease in the number of accidents (73.5 percent) is not an easy thing as there is no country that is 100 percent free of accidents because other accidents are caused by human errors as some-times you may find a person driving a car while drunk and sometimes roads are not good,” said IGP Sirro.

“But when you look at the offences of craving for wealth like banditry and break-ins, you will find that those offences have decreased by 30.5 percent with-in five years and it is not an easy thing. “You must remember that when the President (John Magufuli) ascended to power, police posts were destroyed, officers were robbed of their weapons and banks were robbed of cash, but now it is a long period you have not heard of such a thing,” said the IGP.

According to the IGP, during the period the number of serious criminal incidents decreased from 326,650 to 287,354, which is equivalent to a decrease of 12 percent while the number of murder cases went down as well from 17,365 to 12,718, which is equivalent to 26.8 percent.

He also said the number of banditry incidents went down from 5,340 to 2,294, equivalent to a decrease of 57 percent.

“For example, if the level of corruption were high, no person would stay at banks. Had the offic-ers not dealt with traffic offences, accidents would have increased.

 And what would happen to the areas of Kibiti, if the officers were corrupt to such an extent? I think we would have colluded with them to rob banks. We need money, don’t we?” queried the IGP. The IGP said the other achieve-ments included renovation projects as the settlements of police officers cost Sh1.3 billion, Dar es Salaam’s Kurasini Police College (Sh700 million), police ground (Sh570 million), accumulated payments of tenders and officers (Sh43 billion) and 877 new jobs.

“The buildings of our Kurasini police college were previously constructed with timber, but now when you go there you will find storey buildings.

As you can remember, the president (Dr John Magufuli) allocated Sh10 billion for the construction of at least 400 police housing units across the country, which had not happened before.

The development under this respectable man (president Magufuli) is great. However, IGP Sirro said more than four regions were facing the challenge of manpower at the level of RPCs, adding that now, ration-ally, one police officer would serve over 1,800 people compared with the demand for the ratio of one officer to averagely serve 450 people.

According to the IGP, another challenge is about some community police youth to get involved in victimising people.

“The problem is that a person may have committed a minor offence, but will be assaulted. However, it is all about education,” said the IGP.