Police takes stock of 2018; reflects on New Year

As the year ends, AIGP

Asan Kasingye, the Chief Political Commissar of the Uganda Police Forces has

digested the happenings and also reflected on the forthcoming year in a conversation

with Nile Post.

The year 2018

started with a spillover of cases of kidnaps and murders but as these reduced,

there came murder by shooting that claimed a number of prominent persons

including Col. Ibrahim Abiriga and ASP Muhammad Kirumira among others.

According to

Kasingye, challenges like women murders, leaflets threatening people’s lives,

panga wielding attacks and many others were a real threat to security all over

the country in the year 2018.

“A lot of crimes

including women murders in Entebbe and Nansana, letters from unknown people

threatening lives, bijambiya in Masaka, kidnaps and many others were a

challenge to us in the year 2018,”Kasingye said.

The Police Chief

Political Commissar says lack of enough logistics continue to ravage the force

as the year ends.

“We want to

investigate and reduce crime but the challenge of logistics and resources will

always be here.”

This he says is

still a big impediment in their mandate to fight crime.

“Quick reaction to

crime will necessitate that we have quick access to resources but this is not

always the case,”Kasingye noted.

He says even the

number of police officers ought to be increased and according to him, the force

needs at least 80,000 officers to help keep law and order on top of detecting

and preventing crime.

“There also must be

officers deployed everywhere which is not possible at moment.”

Kasingye also says

that training of their officers is still a challenge but is optimistic it will

be dealt with as time goes on.

Successes

According to the

Chief Political Commissar of the police force, despite challenges, they have

had a number of achievements in the year 2018.

He mentions the installation

of the CCTV cameras as one of their greatest achievements for the year.

Police recently

announced that a total of 5,552 CCTV cameras are set to be installed in various

places around the country with the Kampala Metropolitan area taking a lion’s

share with 3233 cameras on 1248 sites and the first phase of the installation

is set to be completed.

President

Museveni in October commissioned the project with a temporary command centre at

Nateete police station and according to Kasingye, the project is a great stride

towards elimination of crime all over the country.

“Having CCTVs in

place, we can be able to monitor whatever is happening in the city and its surrounding.

This way we can be able to provide security to our people,”Kasingye says.

The police started

a countrywide exercise of fingerprinting of all guns which according to them is

a great stride towards fighting criminality especially murder by shooting.

“The exercise is

almost over and it will be very helpful and if anybody commits crimes

connecting to shooting, it will take us small time to connect dots and know who

shot and using which gun before arresting them,”Kasingye said.

“We can as well remove the probability about the owner of the gun used

like it has always been the case. By next year we should be able to stamp out

crimes committed using guns.”

He says increment of salaries for police officers especially at junior

ranks is another success as the year 2018 ends adding that is a big boast in

giving morale to the officers.

“We hope that this can improve more in the next financial budget.”

The Police director says the force has increased its efforts aimed at

community policing all over the country and have opened various toll free lines

where members of the public can call for assistance.

The deployment of over 100 police officers in Somalia under the AMISOM

can also not go without a mention as the year 2018 ends.

The police force can also boast about construction of over 1000 housing

units for its officers which is on course at Naguru.

Way forward

As we move forward,

the force hopes to deal with the issue of some a number of its officers

involved in criminal activities in various parts of the country after a number

of them have been indicted and others detained by the army.

Kasingye says the issue

of household incomes for police officers is something that the force must

looking into in the new year.

“Yes we have the Sacco

but there are still complaints about it in terms of access to loans and savings

among other things. We need to deal with it in the forthcoming year.”

He says they will

continue with efforts to fight transnational crimes through collaboration with

sister security agencies and neighboring countries.