Kayihura stops Akullo from talking to media

Kampala- The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Gen Kale Kayihura, has ordered an inquiry to establish how information about the investigations into the pension scam case and the internal feuds between the Force’s crime fighting units went to the media without his permission.

In a strongly-worded message sent to all police units on April 23, Gen Kayihura said he was “gravely concerned” about the two stories that were published in Daily Monitor.

He described the act as “breach of confidence under the Police Act and Police Standing Orders.”

In the message, however, Gen Kayihura admitted the information in the two stories was true, although he added that some of it was “distorted or false.”
According to the message from the police chief, Ms Akullo is among the police officers who must seek clearance from Gen Kayihura before speaking to the media.

The pension scam case was on April 13 dismissed by the Anti-Corruption Court after the state failed to produce a single witness for two years since the suspects were arrested. The dismissal of the case triggered accusations and counter-accusations between the police and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Under looked?
In his statement, Gen Kayihura said neither him nor the police public relations officer, Mr Fred Enanga, was informed or cleared the information to be released for publication in the said Daily Monitor stories.

“Clearly, the sources of the information were from the police who released information in contravention of the Police Act, as well as Police Standing Orders. This is in spite of the circular issued by the [deputy inspector general of police] DIGP reference number OPS/636 dated September 18 2013,” Gen Kayihura wrote to the police units.

He cited a section of the Police Standing Orders regarding public relations and the press that information should be released only by the PRO in order to ensure there are no breaches of security or policy and that it must be cleared by the IGP “by the quickest possible means before release.”

The IGP ordered the police Professional Standards Unit (PSU) to investigate the source of the stories and the accuracy of the content.

He gave PSU two weeks to complete the investigations “with actionable recommendations.”

In both stories, Daily Monitor spoke to Mr Enanga, the public relations officer of the police. Regarding the pension case, Mr Enanga confirmed there were ongoing investigations about the two detectives.

On the story about two rival investigating bodies in the police, Enanga said: “What I know is that there are joint teams that were established to carry out investigations in Busoga region, terrorism and the killing of Kagezi. The teams are all jointly working well.”

The background

On April 20, Daily Monitor broke a story titled: “New anti-crime unit, CIID clash”, which revealed that CIID and a newly-created Special Operations Unit (SOU) were fighting over management of violent crime cases.

On April 22, the newspaper published a second story based on an interview with CIID director Grace Akullo under the headline “How police bribery killed Shs165b pension scam case”.

In the story, Ms Akullo revealed that two detectives, Mr George Komurubuga, and Mr Moses Kato, who were part of the police team investigating the pension scam, could have been bribed with Shs100m by the suspects to kill the case that involves theft of Shs165b by officials in the Ministry of Public Service. She said the detectives had since abandoned their offices. However, Mr Komurubuga denied the allegations.

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