Government bans army and police retirements

 By Lance Guma
  21 March 2006

Any soldier or policemen intending to resign from the force before the completion of 10 years service will no longer be able to do so. According to the ZimOnline news service top commanders are battling to stop a steady stream of resignations caused by poor salaries and working conditions. The news site quotes sources at the discharge sections of both the army and police saying 3000 security forces had quit since January this year.

500 police officers are said to have tendered their resignations in the month of February alone. The Joint Operations Command (JOC) a grouping of the army, police and prison services is said to have banned all resignations by officers who have not served for longer than 10 years. According to ZimOnline, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri wrote a memo to provincial commanders on the 6th of March in which he announced the JOC decision. Chihuri is said to have also ordered a thorough check and verification of all reasons stated by those officers wishing to resign.

Junior officers wishing to go and study abroad also have to provide proof including acceptance letters from the institutions that will have offered them places for study. Last year we reported how soldiers were being blocked from resigning if they had not served a certain number of years. Although at the time the policy was not official, the armed forces were implementing it secretly. It now seems the tide of resignations have grown and hence the shift into making the policy well known within the forces.

In Bulawayo, Lionel Saungweme reports of secret communications within the army, discouraging the recruitment of anyone from the Karanga clan. In the aftermath of the Tsholotsho meeting it is alleged there is growing apprehension about allowing people from this ethnic grouping to join the army. Emerson Mnangagwa the alleged beneficiary of the ‘Tsholotsho coup’ is also Karanga. A soldier in Bulawayo told Saungweme there is a lot of tension in the army not only on matters of pay but allegiances. The power play in Zanu PF is said to have clearly filtered into the army and hence government was trying to hold on to the older more ‘reliable and loyal’ soldiers.