Police hails LWB for supporting community policing forums

MALAWI: Police in Lilongwe, Area 36 have hailed Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) for supporting community policing forums in Area 36 by among others providing them with working equipment.

This comes after LWB donated various security items such as; button sticks, torches, whistles and reflective jackets all about K4 million to the Area 36 Police Unit to be given to community policing forums who are in the communities within the police unit.

Speaking during the donation ceremony of the items on Thursday at Area 36 Police Unit in Lilongwe, Officer-In-Charge for the Police Unit, Assistant Superintendent Fortunate Munthali said that for a long time her community policing team has been facing challenges when doing their work due to lack of equipment.

“For a long period of time members of our community policing forums were struggling to do their work due to lack of equipment such as reflective jackets, torches, and other related tools, therefore we are very thankful for the support we have received from LWB,” Munthali said.

She added that as police they will closely monitor the community policing forums that will be given the donated equipment to make sure that the equipment is used to its intended purpose.

“As police will be supervising the community policing forums to ensure that the equipment which they have been given should be utilized in a right way so that the security work should be enhanced in the communities,” she said.

LWB has been supporting community policing structures in Lilongwe since last year; so far it has reached out to different areas in Lilongwe including; Area 36, Kawale, and Kanengo.

In his comment, LWB Southern Zone Manager, Dan Kafuka said that as LWB believes in working together with the community hence they thought it wise to support the community policing forums through Malawi Police Service (MPS).

“As LWB we have the policy which tells us to work hand in hand with the community as one way of maintaining our cordial relationship.

“For this reason, we decided to be supporting community policing forums through MPS bearing in mind that it would help to tighten security in the communities where our equipment such as; meters as well as pipes are installed and are easily stolen or vandalized,” Kafuka said.

According to him LWB will be frequently assisting community policing structures through MPS in Lilongwe in a bid to help in maintaining security in the communities.