By Andrew Mlonda

Lilongwe, February 15, Mana: People of Traditional Authority Chimutu in Lilongwe district have hailed government for the construction of a police unit in the area which has reduced crime rate.

Speaking Friday during the media tour of some of the projects, Chairperson for Community Policing in the area Jimmy Ngalawa said before the construction of the infrastructure the crime rate was high, as every week they used to report about four cases in connection with theft.

Ngalawa further said the police unit has also reduced cases of mob justice in the area since people used to walk long distances to report and hand over the suspect to the Deayoung Police unit in Kanengo which is far from the area.

“In the past people just resorted taking the law in their hands once they caught a thief, but these days, all suspects are reported to the nearby police, and this has reduced the number of crimes in the area,” he said.

However, Ngalawa asked government and other well-wishers to construct police houses near the police unit so that the men and women in uniform could stay near the police unit.

Deputy Officer-In-Charge for Mkoma-Mchezi Police Unit Byson Ndawa said the police unit has assisted in bridging the information gap that was there on several crimes, and how people can work hand in hand with the police.

“In the past, we were struggling, once we caught a suspect, we had to call for the vehicle to pick up the suspect, which was time-consuming and also expensive in terms of fuel consumption, but this time around we keep all the suspects here before they are taken to court,” he said.

Lilongwe District Commissioner Dr. Lawaford Palani has since assured the people of Lilongwe of continued implementation of different projects through its different financial windows that the council has such as the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), District Development Fund (DDF), Governance for Enabled Service Delivery (GESD) among others.

The K30 million Mkoma-Mchezi Police Unit was constructed through the Governance for Enabled Service Delivery (GESD) project implemented through the National Local Government Finance Committee, with funding from the World Bank.