16 Dec 2024

 President Advocate Duma Boko has commended the Botswana Police Service (BPS) for the role it plays in maintaining law and order in the country despite unfavourable conditions of service.

Addressing senior BPS personnel yesterday, President Boko said he had great deal of respect and admiration towards the BPS conduct over the years amid many challenges that could have deterred them from executing their duties.

“I truly salutes you and do so humbly, appreciating the dire circumstances that you have to operate under on a daily basis and I can only show my appreciation by according you the respect that you deserve as women and men in uniform committed to serve and protect the safety and wellbeing of this nation,” President Boko said.

President Boko thus reaffirmed government's commitment to availing resources to fund the requisite levels of BPS readiness in crime reduction through improving the personnel's conditions of service and provision of modern crime prevention technologies.

He said among the strategies for action that would contribute directly to an improvement of the quality of policing was a sustained investment in the professional development of police officers and the improvement of their working conditions.

“Government alone cannot address all the challenges faced by the BPS and as the BPS senior management you also need to be cognizant that the onus are upon you to determine what structure and organisation configuration will best enable the BPS to provide the kind of service and outcomes that this country expects of the BPS,” he said.

President Boko indicated that public safety and crime reduction remained government's priority in the endeavour to promote economic recovery, therefore it was only fitting to introduce modernised crime prevention measures aligned to today's sophisticated crime acts.

He highlighted that it was of paramount importance for government to commit towards facilitation of the police service by capacitating it with the resources and expertise required to deal with the evolving digital crime.

“We also expect you to find innovative and creative ways of doing more with less, so we remain efficient and effective in our service delivery to Batswana, until such time that the economy recovers,” President Boko said.

He urged the BPS to constantly reinforce policing initiatives to ensure relevance and sustainability of crime deterrence measures.

President Boko thus in this regard expressed his commitment in continuing to promote a conducive working environment for the BPS to enable it to collectively address issues of national interest, especially where capacity challenges existed. 

With regard to unionising the police service, President Boko said police labour relations in Botswana had been on the spotlight in recent years, adding that whilst government in its labour policies appreciated the need for collective arrangements by employees to bargain for their conditions of service, the same favour had not been extended to the police. 

It is against this background that President Boko expressed his support for the unionisation of the police service, saying such a platform would create a conducive environment for their formal bargaining and communications on issues pertaining to the police welfare. ENDS