Job contract crisis hits police chiefs

Kampala. Officers at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) have been given a two-year extension after the expiry of their contracts.

Police have 18 officers at the rank of AIGP and most of them have been working without contracts for more than six months.
Mr Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson, confirmed the extension of AIGPs’ contracts, but said they were given two years of which one has already expired.

“The AIGPs were given two-year extension. The extension ends next year,” CP Enanga said, adding that they are all in office legally.
Mr Enanga could not explain why the AIGPs’ contracts were not renewed.

Officers at the rank of AIGP, who are at or above 45 years of age, work on three-year contract.
Their contracts are renewable.

Most of them are directors of police directorates, the third highest level in the police structure.
Most AIGPs were working without contracts more than a year ago because they were told that their applications were still pending at President Museveni’s desk.

An officer at the rank of AIGP, who could not be named because of sensitivity of the matter, said they only got to know that their applications for renewal of their contracts did not reach the President when they notified Inspector General of Police Martins Okoth-Ochola that they were leaving office.

Stuck
The officer said when Mr Ochola checked the progress of the files, he only learnt that his predecessor, Gen Kale Kayihura, had allegedly not forwarded their applications to the President.

The officer said the Permanent Secretary of Internal Affairs ministry and Mr Ochola told them to stay their exit until they had got advice from the President.
The President has the powers to give contracts to officers at the rank of AIGP.

After months of delay, the senior officer said, several AIGPs had resolved to hand over office in June, this year, which probably prompted the Ministry of Internal Affairs to extend their stay in police to avert leadership crisis.

However, AIGP Fred Yiga, 59, who has been the Director of Interpol Uganda, decided to leave police, ending his 32 years of service after his contract expired last week.

Dr Yiga has been replaced by Senior Commissioner of Police Benson Oyo Nyeko, who was his deputy.
Dr Yiga was formerly the Commissioner UN Police in South Sudan for more than nine years.

In the 1990s, he was famous for anti-corruption campaigns in the Traffic Police. He was recommended by the Justice Julia Ssebutinde’s commission into corruption in the police as one who should be elevated.

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