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Uganda: Who is Policing the Police?
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New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
10 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Kampala
THEY are supposed to keep law and order, but instead they break the law with impunity, causing public disorder. Who will police the Police, is a question concerned members of the public have been asking for sometime now; a question that prompted the creation of a Police Professional Standards Unit last year.
Following complaints from members of the public over the unprofessional conduct of some police officers while on duty, the unit last week swung into action and arrested 17 traffic police officers suspected of taking bribes from motorists. While the unit's actions must be commended, a lot of work still has to be done, if the public is to stop looking at the police force as an idle and disorderly outfit.
The fact that the operation to clean up the Police started in the traffic department shows that the people behind it know where the problem is. This is one department that has given the entire police force a bad image, because of the unprofessional way in which it carries out its work. However, the Professional Standards Unit needs to find out why almost all the 17 suspects were fresh recruits, yet the problem of corrupt officers has been going on for years.
Is it possible they were caught because they haven't mastered the game yet, or they were set up? They also need to investigate the relationship between police officers and certain service providers, especially operators of breakdown vehicles, whose businesses are closely related to police work. The unit should find out whether it is proper for a traffic Police officer to own a fleet of taxis or bodabodas or to have shares in a breakdown service vehicle.
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These are some of the issues that have to be addressed it the unit is to be effective. Otherwise, they will continue netting the small fry, while the big fish continue to swim freely in the corruption high sea that the police force has become.
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