Museveni to meet over 3000 Crime Preventers’ leaders

President Museveni is set to meet over 3000 leaders of the National Crime Preventers Forum in Kampala,the Nile Post has learnt.

Since the disposal of former Inspector General of Police,Gen.Kale Kayihura who was seen by many as the god father of the crime preventers, their future looked to hang in balance.

However according to Blaise Kamugisha, the NCPF head, the meeting is scheduled to take place in Kampala on Wednesday at University of East Africa in Kansanga.

“The president has confirmed to grace the function tomorrow in the morning hours,”Kamugisha told the Nile Post in a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon.

From a group of patriotic students from Makerere University, the National Crime Preventers Forum was formed in 2014 to help police in detection and prevention of crime in their areas countrywide.

In the run up to the 2016 general elections, police recruited more crime preventers bringing the number to over eleven million countrywide but critics have on many occasions claimed that these are a group of militias.

The former Inspector General of Police, Gen.Kayihura on a number of occasions told off critics over the crime preventers saying that police will continue recruiting them regardless of persistent criticism.

“I am tired of people vulgarsing the concept of crime preventers .It is not the first of its kind in the world and they are not militias. We shall not stop recruiting them. You can go hand if you are ignorant of their importance,”Kayihura said at a function in Kapchorwa district in 2016.

Despite claims by the past police leadership of the good work done by the group in fighting crime around the country, the force’s image has on the other hand been extensively tainted by reports robbery, theft, unlawful arrests and extortion by the crime preventers on a number of occasions.

Their fate became unknown following the disposal of Kayihura who was seen as their god father by the members of the public.