Kayihura orders probe of top officers at police headquarters
IGP Kale Kayihura.
Kampala.
Police Professional Standards Unit (PSU) has started an investigation to identify senior officers at police headquarters, whom the Inspector General of Police says are creating intrigue and division in the police using the print media.
Last week, Gen Kale Kayihura ordered PSU to hunt for officers at police headquarters who he said were leaking information to the media and undermining their efforts in the police force. “I am going to ask the PSU to start hunting down these rumourmongers at police headquarters…. We are going to start a serious fight against rumourmongers who undermine our efforts to build strength [in the police],” Gen Kayihura said in Jinja District.
Police headquarters seat top police directors and financial controllers. Gen Kayihura has been at loggerheads with some of the police brass, whom he considers too bureaucratic to ease the direction the police should take.
The PSU investigations come at a time when police are under investigations by the Inspector General of Government after the recent questionable police promotions.
The whistleblower is believed to be a senior police officer, who was able to get a copy of the promotions even before they were announced on the police radio.
Since the start of IGG investigations, several senior police officers who were on the committee that vetted the last promotion list, have recorded statements with the IGG.
Police Professional Standards Unit is investigating a case of spreading harmful propaganda contrary to sections of the police disciplinary code of conduct under the Police Act.
However, when the police spokesman, Mr Fred Enanga, was contacted yesterday, he said he was aware of the police chief’s orders, but no official instructions had been given to the commandant of PSU. Gen Kayihura advised his confidant and the director of Police Human Resource Management, Mr Andrew Felix Kaweesi, not to fall prey to officers at police headquarters.
It is also alleged that senior police officers are opposed to Gen Kayihura’s programmes to give a multi-billion tender to the Police Exodus Sacco to prepare food for police officers without going through the traditional procurement processes.
In the past
Last year, Gen Kayihura banned all police officers, including police directors, from talking to the media or releasing any information without his authorisation after Daily Monitor published stories on disagreements on the creation of an autonomous Special Operations Unit and investigations into corruption in Public Services.
