Police officer works for six years without salary
State minister for Labour and Industrial Relations Col (Rtd) Charles Okello Engola with Uganda Police Chief Commissar Asan Kasingye during a meeting in Oyam District last Friday. PHOTO | UGANDA POLICE FORCE
What you need to know:
- Over the years, government officials have used the dire welfare of police officers as a pitch for more funding. However, the Shs916b police budget for this financial year spared only Shs94.4b for officers’ welfare, with only 18 of every 100 officers able to get accommodation.
A female police officer in Kwania District has worked for six years without getting her salary after her name was deleted from the government payroll.
Trouble started after the officer added an initial in her names during registration for the national identification card.
She registered as Sunday Clair when she was joining the Uganda Police Force but later added a third name, Ajok.
The salary department then withheld her salary after she was suspected to be a ghost.
This was revealed during a tour of the North Kyoga policing area last week by the Police Political Commissar, Mr Asan Kasingye.
Mr Kasingye was in the region for a week-long tour of police stations and barracks in all the nine districts that make up Lango Sub-region in order to address the human resource needs of the officers.
“The things, which cut across all these stations we have gone to, are challenges of welfare and human resource, including some few people who have been missing salaries,” Mr Kasingye told journalists in Lira City on Friday.
“One similar situation that I found was in Kwania where a lady called Ajok Sunday missed salary for six years. Six years is a very long period, but I found out that police officers are missing salaries not because we don’t pay them but because of their wrong names, which they change without following proper procedures,” he added.
He said the name Ajok could not be traced in the Uganda Police Force records. Mr Kasingye added that they also found a similar problem in Kole District where a female officer has three names yet the police records show only two.
The political commissar said they also found that all the districts in the area, with the exception of Lira, do not have police health units.
He said this was because the police lacked medical personnel but they are now training some officers who will be deployed to all the districts without medical units.
“Police officers have been suffering using their own money for treatment when they and their family members fall sick, which is not right. So, that one we are rectifying it. They are going to have medical units,” he explained.
Mr Kasingye also noted that some police barracks such as those in Lira are dilapidated, but added that funds have been released to the office of the regional police commander for renovation.
In Alebtong District, he said, they found the police quarters was not properly finished, adding that it lacked doors and shutters.
Mr Anatoli Katungwensi, the North Kyoga regional police commander, said Lira City was divided into two divisions, each with a division police commander.
He said the Lira District police commander recently relocated his office to Ogur Sub-county, the proposed site for the relocation of Lira District headquarters.
