The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
POLICE in Bulawayo are this week expected to come up with a deliberate policy to help curb the rising cases of cash-in-transit robberies that have been on the increase.
The city has in recent months recorded a number of armed robbery cases with robbers getting away with huge sums of money. In the past two weeks, two armed robberies took place at Ascot Shopping Mall and Choppies Supermarket in Parklands. In the Choppies robbery armed robbers fired several shots before getting away with an undisclosed amount of cash.
National police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said while he did not have the exact figures that had been lost to armed robbers in the city, they were worried on the sudden rise of these cases.
He revealed that the Officer Commanding Bulawayo Province, Commissioner Patton Mbangwa will this week be availing a plan that will see them being able to curb the number of armed robberies in the city.
“These cases are honestly worrying where these suspects are targeting people dealing with foreign currency. I know that the Officer Commanding Bulawayo Province is working on something and this coming week, people will see a lot of movement, as part of the police’s goals to curb these cases. Some of these measures will see the police also engaging companies and the security companies because these are the two main entities when it comes to these armed robberies,” said Asst Comm Nyathi.
He said there was a need for companies to now include the police in their activities, especially those that deal in huge sums of money. Asst Comm Nyathi said this year in Bulawayo there have been three major armed robbery cases which include the Access Bureau de Change cash-in-transit, the recent Choppies Parklands cash-in-transit and the Cash and Carry Wholesalers armed robbery. He revealed that to add on to these cases there were also incidents where armed robbers raided two service stations in the city, tied attendants’ hands before getting away with cash in dramatic incidents that occurred within two days in February.
He urged members of the public to help in the fight against crime through providing information to assist the police arrest the rogue elements.
