By Andrew Irumba
Kampala: The Uganda Police Force have failed to investigate over 515,687 cases in the past five years. This was revealed by the Criminal Investigations Directorate director Grace Akullo.
This means 103,137 cases are not investigated every year and 282 daily.
According to records from CID, the unresolved cases come with a number of factors such as disappearance of suspects, waiting for de-oxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests especially for defilement and rape cases.
Akullo also added that according to police, other cases fail due to inadequate detectives, and some cases involve suspects who are outside the country something that calls for international process to have suspects extradited whereas in other instances samples may need to be taken abroad for further investigations.
“It is only in 2018 when CID registered few numbers of unresolved cases at 90,763 while 2014 it recorded the highest number of unresolved cases at 122,733. In other years like 2015, case backlog stood at 101,733, in 2016 unresolved cases were 95,270 and 2017, case backlog stood at 105,017,” Akullo said.
She also explained case backlog as cases committed in a particular year but are still pending in court or their investigations are still underway. Case backlog means a crime that has not been fully investigated in a period of six months for capital offences such as rape, defilement, aggravated robbery, treason, corruption and murder.
In civil litigation or crimes, case backlog means an offense whose investigations have gone beyond three months.
The CID boss said, capital crimes are supposed to be concluded and their files handed over to Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) within six months.
Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP), Maj Gen Muzeyi Sabiiti, in a meeting with CID commanders said case backlog can be reduced by distributing detectives equally.
Sabiiti wondered why some Police Stations such as Jinja Road have 30 detectives yet other upcountry station have five detectives or even below.
In some areas like Kaabong, Sabiiti said they have general duties officer working as detectives. He asked Akullo to ensure such gaps are covered by distributing the detectives equally.
A month ago, Police Spokesperson, Fred Enanga, said each detective’s workload had increased from 700 case to 950 cases. This was attributed to less number of detectives yet the population bulges every year and this means an increase in crime.
