Police need some old brooms and new paint

Gen Kale Kayihura officially handed over office to the newly appointed Inspector General of Police (IGP) Martins Okoth-Ochola at a well-choreographed ceremony at police headquarters in Naguru on Thursday.
Thus after more than a week of hearing Gen Kayihura’s sins, the ceremony was a good opportunity for him to paint his legacy the way he would like it to be, and he did. He cited his achievements: Expanding the Force from 14,000 to 43,000 strong thus reducing police-to-population ratio by more than half; increasing budget from Shs86b to Shs540b; acquiring helicopters and increasing fleet of vehicles; building police headquarters and 75 new police stations, etc.

In many ways, therefore, the Force is much better than he found it 12 years ago and credit rightly belongs to him. What is worse off since he took over is certainly the Force’s image as well as its efficiency in solving crime. That failure cannot be rubbed away. Indeed both Gen Kayihura and Internal Affairs minister Gen Jeje Odongo admitted this and told the new team these are urgent things to fix.

The public is, however, not expecting just a paint job; it has put up with so much malfeasance of the police that the new team will not have the time Gen Kayihura had to gamble around. They must, therefore, quickly get to work and one quick way to start is to pick some old brooms that were well-schooled in policing work to bring back order, systems and professionalism in the Force while leveraging the now available resources to introduce modern systems of policing.

But to get here, there will have to be some cutbacks on wastage in the Force. Thus while the fleet has expanded, one third – if not half – of the vehicles are small cars, luxury off-roaders or double cabin pick-up trucks to take fat-bellied bosses from home to office or carry stuff to their farms. There are simply not enough vehicles assigned to patrol duty to protect citizens or respond to emergencies. The few patrol vehicles are commandeered – at least in Kampala – to clear traffic for VIPs, friends and anyone who pays the patrol team.
That needs to stop so as to save resources that should then be put where it is most deserving.

Equally urgently is the need to return to the traditional Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and Special Branch as the fulcrum of crime intelligence and prosecution. The myriad high-sounding outfits that had been established should be disbanded and resources channelled to what has worked before and works elsewhere. When this is done, the public will begin to notice the new paint.