Police to recall bodas from crime preventers

Crime preventers are at crossroads as the police seek to repossess more than 1,000 motorcycles given to them to gather intelligence during the 2016 General Election.
Last week, President Museveni mooted plans to absorb crime preventers into the army’s reserve force – a verbal statement that the police management has defined as a directive that implies the crime preventers are no longer members of the Uganda Police Force, but placed under the army.
Police spokesman Emilian Kayima said they go by President Museveni’s statement that the crime preventers are now members of the army’s reserve force and, therefore, any police equipment in their possession should be handed over to the unit that was supervising them.
“When you leave an institution or office and move to another, you hand over every equipment. The equipment belongs to the unit. The responsible police unit will carry out an inventory and establish equipment in the hands of crime preventers,” Mr Kayima said yesterday.
But by yesterday there was no formal communication from the police leadership to transfer the touted millions of crime preventers from the police to the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).

UPDF Act
Section 4 of the UPDF Act, 2005, establishes the reserve force and Section 4(2) states that they shall be under the immediate supervision and control of such officers as may be prescribed by the Defence Forces Council.
But the spokesman of National Crime Preventers Forum, Mr Brian Mauso, said President Museveni’s statement was misunderstood by many people as ordering their divorce from the police.
“The President did say we are a reserve force and our efforts are still needed at village level to fight crime and poverty. We are still working with the police and our members are still liaising with police commanders at the lower level. Police bought the motorcycles for the crime preventers to collect information on the ground. We aren’t going to hand them over,” Mr Mauso said in an interview yesterday.
Police under the leadership of the former Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, trained hundreds of thousands of crime preventers in military skills. Some were armed by the police.

Crime preventers’ role
The crime preventers were given more than 1,000 motorcycles before the 2016 general election to facilitate their intelligence gathering.
Some crime preventers also spied on police officers and shared that information with police surveillance unit leading to some arrests and transfers.
At least one crime preventer in the 1,403 sub-counties in the country has a motorcycle with private number plates.
It is alleged that police have been fuelling and maintaining the crime preventers’ motorcycles, yet some sub-counties have police officers without motorcycles.
The crime preventers were reporting to the police’s Directorate of Crime Intelligence, which was headed by Lt Col Ndahura Atwooki, who has since been recalled by the army.
Brig Richard Karemire, the army spokesman, said in an interview that the crime preventers are now in the army reserve forces legally as per Section 6(1) (c) of the UPDF Act of 2005 and Article 17(2) of the Constitution.
“If there is need, you as a reporter of Daily Monitor can also become a member of the Reserve Forces. It doesn’t necessarily mean that being called in the Reserve Forces means going to war, it can be to help in an emergency,” Brig Karemire said.
Section 6(1)(c) of the UPDF Act 2005 on sources and organisation of Reserve Forces states that the sources of the Reserve Force shall include – “auxiliary forces, state security organisations and such other citizens of Uganda as have undergone military training under Article 17(2) of the Constitution.”
Article 17(2) of the Constitution on the duties of a citizen states: “It is the duty of all able-bodied citizens to undergo military training for the defence of this Constitution and the protection of the territorial integrity of Uganda whenever called upon to do so; and the State shall ensure that facilities are available for such training.”
Brig Karemire said Article 17(2) empowers them to bring in crime preventers.
He said the process of establishing command and control over the crime preventers will take some time.
“We are going to carry out an audit by counting all crime preventers in the country to know their actual numbers then they will be retrained and reorganised to enable the army to have a strong command and control over them,” he said.
He said it would be dangerous to have such a group in the society without having proper systems for them.

Criticism and funding

Recruitment criteria questioned: Human rights groups, including Hurinet, African Centre for Rehabilitation and Treatment of Torture Victims and Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) recently punched holes in the criteria and curriculum followed while recruiting and training crime preventers and called for the suspension of the exercise.
Opposition complaint: The Opposition has also criticised crime preventers, saying there are fears they would be used to perpetuate electoral violence.
Funding: Recently, Parliament passed Shs37 billion budget to facilitate crime preventers.