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Uganda: Police Force Needs to Do Much More
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The Monitor (Kampala)
EDITORIAL
11 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Kampala
Police authorities on Thursday paraded traffic cops whom they accused of taking bribes in the course of their work, which is to make sure our roads stop being the killing fields they are.
This is an extension of a recently launched crackdown on lawlessness on the roads. Unlicensed drivers, drivers of vehicles in poor mechanical condition, and those who are reckless are being pulled over.
There is no overstating the importance of what the police authorities are doing in a country with one of the worst traffic accident rates in the world.
But there was something noticeably odd at the Thursday parade gleefully presided over by Traffic Police Commissioner Steven Kasiima, publicist Judith Nabakooba and Mr John Ndugutse, the head of the Police Professional Standards Unit that carried out the operation.
The highest ranked of the 17 cops paraded is a corporal. The others are constables, and probation police constables. It is all so laudable for the authorities to crack down on corruption in the Uganda Police Force. By all means this effort must continue.
The question, however, is: where are the senior officers who also take bribes? Why go only for the small fry? Is it because they are too inexperienced to hide their bad ways?
No answers to these questions were given at the Thursday parading, which parading is itself a debatable issue with all its humiliation of the suspects.
One astute reader sent this newspaper a letter noting that the paraded policemen and women "do not at all reflect the real traffic officers with big stomachs seen on the roads every day conniving with traffic law offenders". We agree.
The public perception that the police authorities were simply pulling a publicity stunt may stick if the process of fighting corruption in the force is not seen to be fair, thorough and wide-ranging. The public expects no less.
We want to see the big fish being fried in public as well. That said, the government must show sensitivity and flexibility in budgeting. The force needs more money for recruitment, pay, equipment, better training, and better housing.
What is the point in attracting investors - the sensible although never-ending sing-song of this government - to a country where safety of their lives and property are not assured?
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Of course, Ugandans come first in all this. But even out of self-interest, the government must improve the lot of our policemen and women.
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