ZRP Computerising In Hopes Of Eliminating Corruption

Minister of Home Affairs Kazembe Kazembe has said the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) along with the Registrar General’s Office will be getting computerised with the intent to improve efficiency and weed out corruption.

Computerisation lessens pressure on our officers thereby improving efficency as it helps them serve clients quickly.
Minister Kazembe Kazembe

Will this root out corruption?

There are also hopes that the introduction of digital systems will help minimise corruption since there is fewer face to face interactions.

In most cases, face-to-face interactions facilitate dubious relationships that lead to corruption.

Whilst the intentions are good we’ve seen digital systems built to minimise corruption failing abysmally at just that. The University of Zimbabwe built a portal for students to apply for campus accommodation but there have been rumours that the people running that online portal still get bribes and open it up at specific times.

Whilst that’s just a rumour, it’s still extremely difficult for students to secure on-campus accommodation at the institution and the introduction f a digital tool didn’t solve the underlying problem.

Improved efficiency

Computerising the police force won’t be futile and it’s great that the government is making strides on their eGovernment program which was announced back in 2011 with much of the progress being made since 2017.

Ultimately the goal of taking these systems is to also increase integration between different government branches and authorities:

We need to integrate between police, immigration and registry departments through computerisation.
Officers from the three departments have to interchange their departmental information just by the click of a button.
Minister Kazembe Kazembe

This will be invaluable in eliminating the need for back and forths between government departments when they can all access information from each other.