Police accused of confiscating motorcycles from crime preventers

The National crime preventers’ Coordinators have accused police of confiscating motorcycles belonging to crime preventers in different parts of the country.
The National crime preventer’s Coordinator, Mr Blaise Kamugisha, told Daily Monitor on Tuesday that police should stop harassing and impounding motorcycles from Crime Preventers with immediate effect.

“Police are impounding motorcycles from crime preventers and this is illegal. We got these motorcycles from the President of Uganda, Police must stop with immediate effect,” he said.
Mr Kamugisha said his office has on several occasions received complaints from the crime preventers’ leaders that District Police Commanders (DPCs) and Officers in Charge of police stations (OCs) were harassing them over motorcycles.

“I have received complaints from the crime preventers’ leaders that DPCs are harassing them over motorcycles,” he said.
More than 1,000 motorcycles were given to leaders of crime preventers at the sub-county and district level to facilitate them in the gathering of intelligence to police in the fight against crime in 2016.
They were recruited during Gen Kale Kayihura’s tenure at the helm of Uganda Police force and were also given police uniforms to facilitate them in their work.

Mr Brian Mauso, the Deputy National Coordinator of crime preventers, said some police officers are also ordering the crime preventers not to handover motorcycles to police.
The conference, under the theme “Consolidating and strengthening crime preventer’s structures”, took place at Mbale Secondary school in Mbale Municipality.
The police political commissar, Mr Asan Kasingye, said police cannot confiscate their motorcycles when they are on duty.
“These people are jumping on issues beyond them. The issue of motorcycles is between police and UPDF, it has nothing to do with crime preventers,” he said.

The deputy police spokesperson, Mr Patrick Onyango, said there is no order that crime preventers should handover the motorcycles they possess.
But some of the police officials told Daily Monitor that crime preventers are no longer part of the police force and that their command was transferred to the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
“The crime preventers are now members of the army’s reserve force and any police equipment in their possession should be handed over to the unit that was supervising them,” a source that preferred anonymity, said.

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