Top cop boasting about drinking ‘expensive’ beer in video demoted, transferred

A police officer filmed boasting that a beer he was drinking is beyond the reach of many has been demoted and transferred.

Detective Assistant Inspector Makore, who was working in the Criminal Investigations Department’s Law and Order section at Harare Central Police Station, has been exiled to rural Nembudziya in Gokwe, police sources said.

“The bosses were not happy when they watched the video. His conduct was below his rank and the expected levels of professionalism on and off duty,” a police source familiar with the decision to jettison him said.

Makore is heard on the video boasting that a quart of Castle Lager is worth two chickens, and that three of the quarts would buy one a goat.

A quart of Castle Lager now costs RTGS$13 in some drinking establishments, a symptom of a hyperinflation ravaged currency fast losing its value as Zimbabweans grapple with the worst economic crisis in over a decade.

Drinking clear beer is now seen as an achievement among Zimbabweans, particularly civil servants whose salaries remain stagnant even as prices of basics and other services gallop.

Makore’s moment of indiscretion would have particularly roiled his politically sensitive bosses as it exposes the state of the economy, and the social struggles now facing most Zimbabweans.

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