Zimbabwe’s Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Kazembe Kazembe, has revealed that the country faces a major staffing gap in its police force, with only about 14,000 officers currently in service against a recommended establishment of 50,000.
Kazembe made the remarks after Chikanga legislator Lynette Karenyi (CCC) asked whether the construction of new police posts could be undermined by a shortage of officers.
In response, the Minister said the issue was not simply about having “very few” officers, but rather a significant shortfall compared with the official establishment.
“At the moment, we are in the process of looking for people who want to join the police force because we are losing a lot of people most of the time. Before we think of creating new police posts, there is a shortage of police officers in the existing police stations, which is one of the issues that we are fixing,” said Kazembe.
“It would be our wish to put police posts everywhere, but we do not have enough resources because of the statistics I mentioned,” he added.
“For instance, in the country, we are expected to have 50,000 police officers in line with our population. At the moment, that is the establishment we have.
“Even in foreign countries, there are ratios they use to determine how many police officers are needed.
“At the moment, we have 14,000 police officers. It is our wish to reach 50,000; the ones we have at the moment are few, but it would be good if they were 50,000.”
Minister Kazembe said the staffing shortfall has been driven by attrition, including resignations, retirements, and officers leaving the service.
He added that recruitment is ongoing but remains constrained by approvals required from the Treasury and the Public Service Commission.
“We are recruiting every year and training about 1 000 to 2 000 officers,” he said.
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