By Ronaldo Kalangi
Hon. Obiga Kania, the state Minister for internal affairs has revealed that police force is set to recruit more police personnel to solve the current shortage in the force and the increasing cases of crime.
Minister said that the shortage is particularly attributed to the creation of new administrative units, without a corresponding increase in police officers.
“Every district would require a district police command and every sub county that has been created would also need a police post. The force that we have of about 43,000 police officers is very limited,” he said.
Mr.Kania was responding to a matter of national importance raised by Hon. David Lukyamuzi Kalwanga during plenary sitting on Tuesday Feb 2019. The sitting was chaired by Deputy Speaker, Jacob Oulanyah.
Kalwanga said Busujju County has registered an increase in murder cases, which he attributed to shortage of policemen following the creation of Kassanda district. He said that majority of the police personnel from Busujju were transferred to Kassanda district.
“Yesterday we lost a resident called Ssali Willy and the Police told us that they cannot solve the problem immediately,” said Kalwanga.
The minister said that funds have been secured to recruit 6,000 police personnel as an immediate intervention.
“The total interest is to recruit 10,000 police personnel; these should be able to graduate in nine months. This will be able to solve the shortage in the police force comprehensively,” he said.
He however noted that government will still be faced with a problem of deployment because of inadequate funds to service, provide fuel and maintain the fleets.
The Minister also said that he will find out the number of police officers deployed in Busujju and if necessary, some forces will be shifted to the areas facing danger.
“We have not heard about the murders in Busujju. We shall get in touch with the police and get details to know what exactly they (police) are doing,” said Obiga Kania.
However, some political pundits have alleged that the current ‘appetite’ to recruit more security personnel is in preparation to 2021 general elections where they expect Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine to take part as a presidential candidate against president Museveni.
