South Sudan Traffic Police: A roadside sitting’s force

In the most counties of the world the police are trained in their would-be respective units/specialization. It is not determined after graduation. However, in South Sudan it is the other way round. Recruits are trained generally, and later sent to the sections of their interests. What is important to our police force is military training they received to make them after graduation strong men/women – simply because someone who remains untrained is being perceived to be nothing. I had once said some day before in this column that this kind of perception was inherited from Sudan. In Sudan, the first class men are perceived to be those who have trained in the army, the second goes to police, and the line goes down to place like the wildlife force in the bottom of all strong men etc. It is the perception or wisdom misplaced. However, as South Sudan is the Sudan’s firstborn it is noted it has taken large inheritance of Sudanese’s values and perceptions. Therefore, like Sudan, South Sudan police training is purely military one. The police are expected to be typical fighters, but do less in upholding the rule of law. The police force is also a dumping field for the army; as the men/women deemed unfit for the army are taken to the police without undergoing some police training in order to adjust their mental set. And if they are trained, they are not given what it meant to be police. ‘It is the wrong man in the right place’ scenario, I believe. In nutshell, the training does not indoctrinate them into accepting the duties attached to the purpose of police training.  The only known indoctrination is that ‘they must not act like (Miliky) Arabic for plain-clothes civilian’. Conversely, being a traffic police may add extra- luck to the given recruits. The police commandant had no plans as to how many police they want to post into traffic unit after training. What is expected of such force?; why is it necessary to have a police which deals with traffic regulations?; and how can they be supervised to see whether they live-up to peoples’ expectations?; Do they also need to assume they are a fighting force; or whether there is value for money in the job they are doing – since they are government employees who are also contracted to do their jobs in return for every single public penny paid to them; how do their bosses differentiate between the one who does his/her job in accordance with the guiding principles of the police, and the one who only disguises as police only in uniform just for money sake?. The list is longer than this. Nevertheless, it is worth noting, our traffic police is the most unprofessional, ineptness, corrupt of all degrees of corruption, and extravagantly too indolent to want to show they knew what they are duty-bound. Given that, getting into traffic police is the most difficult thing to do in South Sudan, and those who make it often forget. Given the corrupt gains in that department inter alia; bribery, fine that does not get to government treasury, and finally the comport for receiving public money while seated on the roadside for two or three hours daily, it is noted the interested recruits either pay bribery of some kind to the boss to transfer them from other police units to the traffic unit, or they are introduced by some big important man/woman somewhere. It is an area where nepotism is gaining true momentum.With that said, what are the traffic police’s performances in the eyes of general public? The existence of traffic police sitting on the roadside on rotation from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Friday, and 10:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday is the greater cause of accidents. Their seating on the roadside is aggravating traffic chaos in the country (with some of the most notorious and aggressive motorists on earth). It is also diminishing the caution the motorist are supposed to take. Given the idle traffic police visibly  sitting or standing on the roadside, the motorists often develop the assumptions that – someone is there to regulate their traffic – just to find themselves colliding badly, and the on-looking traffic police rushed in an attempt to milk the accident. As all traffic accidents must always has the one whose fault is to blame for causing of accident, the inept traffic police often decide on the basis of who is less important person who can be lured into paying without due legal procedures. Although the individual traffic police monthly incomes from the gain of such illegal earnings may vary, busy roads are ‘ready-made-food’ for traffics warders. And the traffic police are often seen expressing their disappointment for being posted into less busy roads. To some of them, traffic accidents are incomes. Some traffic police who are lucky to have been posted into low-lying-fruits areas such as the Bor-Nimule’ junction or Yei’s road often gets more than other less important inner roads. This is what is happening in our traffic police.  Finally, it is my advice to the police Commanders to take this information as crucial and vital in their resolve to reform this corrupt roadside sitting’s force. Otherwise, since the existence of traffic police on the roadside is not helping to regulate traffic in a better way, the fact is to reduce this force to only 2 or 3 individuals in one junction instead of 10 to 12 men/women who are sitting by roadside doing practically nothing. They had to do more supervision than more traffic police men/women. Or the best way is to lay them-off and use their salaries to build traffic lights and see traffic being managed from control rooms, without any to corrupt the process. The reason for having traffic police is to have better traffic regulatory force – and in turn save lives. So, if the existence of traffic police in our country is causing loss of lives as a result of their corrupt practices, then why is government paying public money to cause more deaths?