New police boss lays bare his plan of action

Dar es Salaam. The newly-appointed Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Ernest Mangu, yesterday charted his way forward by laying down his priorities and the strategies he is going to employ to tackle the increase in crime in the country.

Restoring discipline within the force, regaining and maintaining public trust and enhancing cooperation with all security stakeholders including civilians are on top of the new police boss’s priority list.

The setting of objectives by Tanzania’s top cop comes amid mounting pressure and criticism of the law enforcers from a cross-section of the society, including human rights advocates, over the menace of human rights abuses and lack of conclusive investigations and successful prosecutions.

In his first ever press conference since he was sworn in by President Jakaya Kikwete on January 1, Mr Mangu said a criminal intelligence and forensic commission will soon be created and tasked with intelligence gathering and forensic analysis. The commission will operate under the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI).

In the new arrangement, the human resource and administration will now be referred to as human resource, administration and logistics commission.

“We have rules and regulations that guide our daily activities. I will ensure these rules are followed to the letter and I will not hesitate to take action against any officer who is found to act in contravention of the same,” he said.

The IGP also revealed that he has made some changes within the force’s operating commands in a bid to improve efficiency in its operations. Mr Mangu added that he was banking on the community policing initiative which now has its own commission with former Zanzibar Police commissioner Mussa Ally Mussa having been appointed to head it.

He said the aim of the changes was to enable communities and other stakeholders have direct involvement in setting day to day policing activities, insisting that cooperation and participation were key in preventing crime in the country.

“We are improving the initiative because we want to establish an active, strong and functioning partnership between the police, communities and other stakeholders through which crime, police service delivery and police-community relations can jointly be analysed and appropriate solutions designed and implemented,” said Mangu, adding:

“The force has gone through tremendous improvements in the recent past, which we are proudly part of, because we are the same team that worked with the former IGP, but I am happy now that for the first time we have the intelligence unit which I believe will help in speeding up investigations.”

He, however, admitted that kidnap and torture which he termed “new type of crime” that have engulfed the nation in the recent past, is most daunting challenge.

In a positive note, he said, his appointment to lead the force has come at a time when the rate of crime has fallen, a situation he attributed to better strategies put in place by the outgoing IGP, Mr Said Mwema. He pledged he would never to relent.

Asked why the police take time to respond and investigate kidnap and torture cases, Mr Mangu said the problem is that the acts were a new type of crime that shocked not only civilians but the Police Force itself, adding that a programme to train officers on how to deal with the crime was underway.

There has been a wave of kidnap and torture incidents in the country whereas in June 2012, Dr Steven Ulimboka was kidnapped by unknown people who tortured and beat him before dumping him at Mabwe Pande on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam and to date, no suspects have been arrested.

In march last year the chairman of the Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF) and group managing editor of New Habari Corporation (2006), Mr Absalom Kibanda, was attacked by unknown assailants in front his Dar-es-Salaam home as he returned from work in the evening and in this incident too, there hasn’t been any breakthrough in investigations.