Gen Otafiire wants prisons renamed as armed service

Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire has expressed his discontentment over prison officers being treated as traditional civil servants. According to him, they are armed service men and women.

Gen Otafiire said they are in the process of reviewing papers for police officers, prison officers, and immigration officers to be in the category of armed service men and women.

“Your Excellency, recently we were exchanging views in the prisons and police authorities and our observation was the police and prison officers are treated as civil servants. But school teachers carry chalk, doctors carry stethoscopes, agriculturalists carry hoes, and the police and prison service carry arms. I think it is a mismatch to treat the police and prison service as traditional civil servants. We have agreed with my colleagues that we should rewrite the modus operandi and operational procedures and habituation for the police and prisons. These are armed services,” he said 

 “They are not traditional civil servants because now a police officer can go away and you cannot charge him with desertion. A police officer can go away and take leave without pay. Now how do you maintain a commander in control of prison and police officers, armed people who are dealing with national security being treated as ordinary civil servants? The same, Your Excellency, goes for citizenship, and immigration control. In my view I thought Immigration was our first line of defence,” he added.

The retired Luweero Bush War veteran expressed his wish yesterday in his remarks during the passing and commissioning of 2,234 prison officers at Kololo Independence Grounds.

“Your Excellency, we are coming up with papers to review conditions for immigration service, police, and the prisons,” Gen Otafiire added.

He tasked the new prison officers to be patriotic. 

Support
In the same breath, President Museveni who was the chief guest, welcomed Gen Otafiire’s idea.
“Your observations are correct, this issue of the police and prisons, I don’t know about Immigration, but definitely police and prisons are not civil service, but this is part of the colonial hangover that we still have,” President Museveni said.

The Commissioner General of the Uganda Prisons service, Dr Johnson Byabashaija said with the additional 2,234 new recruits, the total number of prison wanders comes to 14,248.

Convicts
He said there are more convicts than those on remand out of the 75,901 prisons incarcerated countrywide, a reversal of the past situation where individuals on remand outnumbered the convict. He attributed thus to improved justice administration.

He also revealed that over the last few months, they have managed to reduce congestion in prisons by 10 percentage points from 372 percent to 362 percent.