Traffic police snap-checks face ban

NOEL IYOMBWA Writes@SunZambianTHE police in Lusaka are contemplating banning traffic snap checks following continued reports of corrupt activities by officers on the ground.Traffic police officers in Lusaka have made it a business to extort money from motorists through mounting roadblocks beyond stipulated hours.Zambia Police Road Traffic Division Superintendent, Yoram Phiri, warned that the lawlessness by […]

NOEL IYOMBWA Writes@SunZambianTHE police in Lusaka are contemplating banning traffic snap checks following continued reports of corrupt activities by officers on the ground.Traffic police officers in Lusaka have made it a business to extort money from motorists through mounting roadblocks beyond stipulated hours.Zambia Police Road Traffic Division Superintendent, Yoram Phiri, warned that the lawlessness by some traffic officers would force the service to abolish snap checks.Mr Phiri said the high command was aware about the unbecoming behaviour of some traffic officers, saying that more than one check point was mounted on the same stretch.“Some officers shift from one point to another on Kafue road,” he said.Mr Phiri said that as a result some motorists were inspected more than three times as the officers were on the same route but at different points.He observed that this was inconveniencing motorists, especially those delivering goods and services and warned that failure to follow directive would result in banning snap checks.Mr Phiri advised police officers to communicate with each other before mounting snap checks to avoid having close check points.“Like I said last time, police officers are not allowed to mount check points for a long time but only snap checks, but what we have heard is that they simply shift to another place but same route along Kafue Road, they move from one place to another.“If they not adhere to rules from the high command to run coordinated snap checks the plan will be to cancel these snap checks until it is well organized,” he said.Some traffic officers have defied the directive from the high command and were mounting road blocks especially on highway roads instead of undertaking snap checks.Police officers have continued mounting roadblocks along Kafue road specifically between Chilanga and Makeni areas.One of the motorists, Kelvin Siame, said that the police officers were inconveniencing motorists and creating congestion.He said that police should instead monitor traffic flow along the road rather than being on the actual road. The Sun