Police resurrects practice to reward best performing areas that had died 10 years ago

The Police force has resurrected a practice in which they reward the best performing districts or divisions in regards fighting crime which had died 10 years ago.

In the past, the force used to reward various districts, divisions, units, individuals and communities for extraordinary efforts in helping them achieve their goal of fighting criminality but the practice died in 2008 with the last function held at Munyonyo.

On Monday, the Inspector General of Police, Martin Okoth Ochola rewarded Yumbe as the best performing district having scored 73%, followed by Kumi at 71% and Katwe Kabatooro in Kasese at 70% as the first and second runners up respectively.

Lira, Omoro and Kiira division (in Busoga) were the worst-performing police regions.

Speaking at the function, Ochola said the practice will help motivate not only individual police officers but even their commanders to work harder to fight crime in their respective areas.

“It will add  to our ongoing efforts to fight crime. This is a good initiative from the Directorate of Research, Planning and Logistics,”Ochola said.

The police chief said that the force is still grappling with a number of challenges including underfunding, welfare, corruption and lack of enough human resource but said slowly by slowly everything will be solved.

“I must thank whoever has contributed to fighting crime in their respective capacities to complement police efforts. Congratulations to all of you and may this honor that you have received serve as an inspiration for you to initiate more programs that will empower the police force and the community to help in promoting peace and order and likewise inspire others in the police force and the other partners to follow your footsteps.”

The Police Director in charge of Research, Planning and Logistics, AIGP Edward Ochom said in a bid to rebuild the force’s tainted image, they have started carrying out several interventions that would see their image cleaned in the face of the public.

“This generalization of blame has not taken into account the majority of officers who work hard and do a good job and it is for this reason that management felt that those who work hard and diligently be appreciated to motivate them work better,” AIGP Ochom said.

Criteria

According to Ochom, they had focused on four areas of poor service delivery including crime investigations, lack of professionalism, observance of human rights and non -compliance to standard operating procedures.

The force based on the percentage number of cases taken to court as a measure of investigations management whereas proportion of complaints against police officers registered by the Professional Standards Unit by members of public originating from the public was the measure used to gauge professionalism.

The police also based on the percentage of suspects released or taken to court within 48 hours as a measure for observance of human rights.

The Police Director in charge of Research, Planning and Logistics, AIGP Edward Ochom said the exercise will become a wakeup call to all unit commanders and supervisors to strive to improve service delivery in their areas of responsibility.

Ochom noted that they will soon widen the scope of assessment to include customer care, community policing, discipline, following orders, assets management, innovations, records management and ICT usage in policing.