Uganda Police Force presents budget framework paper for 2022/23 Financial year

Uganda Police Force has presented its budget framework paper for FY 2022/23 to the Parliamentary Committee on Defence & Internal Affairs.

This was presented by a team led by the Minister of Internal Affairs Gen. Kahinda Otafiire. The IGP Okoth Martin Ochola led the police team which included AIGP Asan Kasingye. The Prisons team was led by Commissioner Johnson Byabashaija, while the Immigration team was led by Maj. Gen Kasita Gowa. The NGO Board among other teams were also represented.

The police team in particular presented the key physical performance at Quarter 2 for the Financial Year 2021/22. These include; Continued construction of 7 staff apartments at Naguru, procurement of 1,380 uniports, replacement of Asbestos roofing, CCTV footage supporting 3,369 cases, and operationalization of 7 regional call centers.

The force also trained 5205 PPCs in specialized courses, reviewed pension and salary Payrolls, maintained the Air Wing Center in Jinja, disrupted terror cells, conducted 393 animal theft operations, recovered a total of 7,128 stolen animals, and arrested 386 suspects as well as responded to 582 emergencies.

Meanwhile, the committee also heard that traffic operations penalized 173,882 motorists and collected Shillings 9,943,100,000 in fines. 6,307 canine tracking led to the arrest of 2,924 suspects out of which 700 convictions were secured.

IGP Ochola and his team also presented efficiency measures of quarter 2 including the use of CCTV and other ICT platforms in policing the use of community policing to fight crime collaboration with sister agencies in crime prevention decentralization of Motor vehicle maintenance and automation of police processes garment factory.

The team also highlighted some emerging Policy Issues including the Amendment of the Police Act to provide for electronic evidence, the Amendment of the Firearms Act, the Narcotics & Psychotropic substances Act, the POMA, Amendment of the Police Standing Orders, and restructuring of the Force.

Areas of persistent supplementary requests that need addressing include Police accommodation, feeding, Criminal Investigations-the force needs an average of 2.1m to investigate a capital offense, procurement, repair, and maintenance of Motor vehicles, Utilities-electricity, water, and telecom.

The police budget for the 2021/22 financial year is at Shillings 916 Billion. This is less than that of 2020/21 which was at Shillings 986 Billion, 2019/2020 at Shillings 930 Billion. In the Financial year 2018/19, the police budget was Shillings 733 Billion while 2017/18 was 665 Billion Shillings.