Why police have failed to deploy at booths, posts
Abandoned. One of the abandoned police booths on 8th Street in Industrial Area. PHOTO BY KELVIN ATUHAIRE
What you need to know:
- Closure. In 2017, the police council took a decision to close many booths due to shortage of manpower, but they did not remove the structures. Some have been occupied by Local Defence Unit personnel and use them to detain suspects. Some have become dens for thugs.
Sporadic police foot patrols, empty booths and posts in Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) and major urban centres, amid rising crime rates, have left people wondering where the officers have disappeared to.
A police source said the officers, who were deployed at booths and posts, are now deployed at investors’ businesses and premises of high profile people in the country.
“There was a presidential directive to protect investors and scale up the numbers guarding high profile persons. The new deployments have taken a big fraction of our officers that were in the areas you are talking about,” a senior officer said on condition of anonymity.
Police booths were established in crime-prone areas such as on the Northern Bypass in Kampala and Wakiso districts.
Before the presidential orders, investors’ security was being provided by private security firms, but they would be overpowered by criminals armed with automatic rifles incase of any robberies.
Last month, Director of Police Operations Assuman Mugenyi sent a police message to all police units ordering them to redeploy at booths, which he said had been turned into dens for thugs.
Assistant Inspector General of Police Mugenyi said the Kampala Metropolitan Police commanders should not leave the booths to Local Defence Unit (LDU) personnel.
“KMP (Kampala Metropolitan Police) commanders with LDUs in their area of responsibility may work with them to utilise the booths as places to re-organise during patrols, but not to take over the full roles and responsibilities of police in the booths establishment,” he said.
However, his orders have not been implemented by police commanders due to inadequate personnel.
Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said police station commanders that do not have enough manpower were ordered by Kampala Metropolitan Police commander to deploy LDU personnel as a backup.
Background
Standards. According to police standards, a booth or police post must have a minimum of three police officers at any time. Many police booths had less than the standard number of police officers, which put the lives of the officers at risk in case of an attack.
Closure. In 2017, the police council took a decision to close many booths due to shortage of manpower, but they did not remove the structures. Some have been occupied by Local Defence Unit personnel and use them to detain suspects. Some have become dens for thugs.
