Police certificates of good conduct to be issued in one day, says Interpol

The Interpol directorate of the Uganda Police Force has said the turnaround time for certificates of good conduct is soon reducing to one day.

Addressing journalists on Friday, the Interpol director, Senior Commissioner of Police, Charles Birungi said since the application for certificates of good conduct went only in July, they have got overwhelming numbers.

He said that whereas it now takes between four to five days for application and getting the certificate of good conduct, they are looking at reducing it to one day with full automation of the system.

“The online application reduced the turnaround time from between 14 to 20 days to now five working days. However, we are targeting full automation of the system so that the turn around time is one day or utmost two days,” Birungi said.

“We are working with our counterparts from forensics and ICT directorates to upgrade the system because of the ever-increasing numbers.”

He said that whereas the process is quick at all levels, delays are experienced at forensics where capturing the fingerprints, processing and their clearance takes almost four days but noted that they are working at reducing this time.

“Currently, if someone has an urgent or emergency issue, for example their ticket and visa and out and they are supposed to fly out of the country as soon as possible, they can indicate it to us so that we recommend them to the Forensics directorate and the exercise for taking their fingerprints and release of results is expedited.”

Birungi explained that whereas Interpol has data of all wanted persons and criminals from all the 194 countries that subscribe to it, Forensics on the other side checks its data base for criminal records of all Ugandans.

He noted that the issuance of the certificate of good conduct means one has been cleared by the two systems, adding that this is also reason for the dely.

The Interpol director said that in a bid to deal with the large numbers of people storming their headquarters in Kololo for certificates of good conduct, they are soon shifting this service to Naguru where there is spacious space.

He noted that the new centre for issuing of certificates of god conduct will be ready by next month, November.

Applicants are asked to go to the Uganda Police website at www.upf.go.ug and go to the service log to access the application forms.