IGP Ochola merges directorates in move to reorganize police

The Inspector General of Police, Martin Okoth Ochola has made another drastic change in the police force in a bid to reorganize the force.

In past few weeks, Ochola has transferred a number of police commanders and their juniors in what is seen as a measure to clean and professionalize the force.

In a message dated March 18th, Ochola has directed that the directorate of Oil and Gas be merged with the directorate of Counter Terrorism.

“Pursuant to section 6(1) (a) of the Police Act, I am ordering the following force reorganization,” reads in part the message.

According to the message, the move should lead to formation of a Division of Oil and Gas and the Commissioner in charge of Human Resource Management is instructed to fast track the changes with the ministry of Public Serivce.

The reorganization will now see AIGP Abbas Byakagaba head both the Directorates of Counter Terrorism and Oil and Gas which have now been elevated to a division.

Previously, Byakagaba was in charge of the Oil and Gas directorate.

In the new efforts to reorganize the police force,Ochola has ordered that supervision of the territorial police commands including Regional and District Police Commanders be reverted to the Directorate of Operations in the force.

The new measures have also seen the supervision of specialized units like the Anti -Stock Theft Unit , canine, police air wing,railway police ,environmental police ,marine,agriculture,mineral and Presidential Protection Group reverted to the Directorate of Operations.

Previously , most of these units have been under the Counter Terrorism Directorate.

The Anti Stock Theft Unit was a directorate of its own whereas a number of units had been reporting directly to the IGP's office but all these have been reverted by the new leadership.

Supervision of the Special investigations Unit and Criminal Case File tracking task force and Flying Squad be reverted to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations whereas supervision of the surveillance and Special Operations be handled by Crime Intelligence.

Flying Squad has been under the Directorate of Operations but reporting to the office of the IGP directly with offices at the Kampala Central Police and Nalufenya in Jinja district .

Consequently,Flying Squad had taken over big cases and leaving CID with small and cases involving finance.

Cyber Crime Unit supervision has been sent to the Directorate of Forensics Services to handle.

These are some of the latest changes by the new police leadership since being appointed by the Commander in Chief also president of Uganda a few weeks ago.

Speaking to legislators on the Parliamentary Appointments Committee Ochola said police died the day Katumba Wamala left the force in 2005.

Recently,President Museveni said the police had been infiltrated by bean weevils.