Police, govt agencies should cooperate

On Wednesday, two days after firing teargas and live bullets to disperse crowds that had been headed to what was supposed to be the first consultative rally of Kyadondo East Member of Parliament Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Secondary School, Gayaza, the police in Lira blocked the legislator from accessing Pacific Grand Hotel, which he had earlier secured for purposes of holding a consultative meeting.

In defense of the Gayaza incident, police spokesman Fred Enanga said the meeting had been organised to take place in an open place contrary to the provisions of the Public Order Management Act (POMA), which recommends that such meetings are held in closed premises.

Mr Enanga said the Lira meeting was okayed by the police. It, therefore, came as a surprise that the District Police Commander of Lira cited lack of preparation as the reason for disruption of the meeting.

Such an incident points to a lack of coordination among police. Why would one commander clear a meeting only for a junior officer to cancel it? Or could it be that some power is out there pulling the strings and in the process making police officers breach the law they are meant to protect?

These events also sadly point to a lack of communication between government agencies. Vital information does not seem to trickle from the men at the helm of the police to the commanders in the districts.

In April last year, Attorney General William Byaruhanga, while responding to a letter in which the Minister for Internal Affairs had questioned the basis on which Mr Kyagulanyi and Dr Kizza Besigye were “going around politicking yet they are not leaders of political parties,” noted that Article 29 guarantees freedom of conscience, expression, movement, religion, assembly and association including the right to demonstrate.

He pointed out that the Opposition leaders freedoms can only be curtailed “if they are deemed prejudicial to the rights and freedoms of others or the public interest”. It would appear that the contents of the Attorney General have never been relayed to the commanders in the districts, which would be absurd.

For a while, there has been a conception that the government is in disarray. The police and the different government agencies need to read from the same page whether it is politics or economics. They owe it to the taxpayers.