Otafiire: I Bleed Because of Police Officers’ Poor Conditions

Internal affairs minister Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire has expressed concern on the living and working conditions of police officers, saying they make him bleed.

Uganda Police does not have adequate accommodation (in both quantity and quality) for its men and women in uniform on top of getting meagre salaries for their hard work of keeping law and order.

The available housing units are normally overcrowded, meaning that many have to look for where to stay with their families. They usually settle for low cost rooms or houses in areas away from the police stations, their workplaces where they have to report every day.

This makes them incur costs of transport, which eat into their low salaries. Most police officers are among the least paid of the hundreds of Ugandans employed by the government.

Otafiire says it is high time the issues such as housing (accommodation) and salaries of police officers, prisons officers and those who work with the Immigration Directorate were handled to make the men and women in uniform do their jobs better.

Otafiire spoke at a ceremony held at the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) Headquarters in Kibuli Kampala at the end of a two-day coordination meeting between the Office of the Director of Public of Prosecutions and CID.

“We have a problem with welfare. I bleed when I see police officers who are working at Jinja Road [Police Station] sleeping in Mukono. And they must come to work on time and then go back on their meagre services,” he said.

“There is need for housing the police, the prisons and the directorate of immigration.”

Otafiire further noted that the issues would have been solved if we didn’t have people who didn’t think within the box in the Ministry of finance.”

He added: “They don’t want to think outside the box or if the box becomes difficult, remove the box.”

Government announced it would increase salaries of some police, prisons and UPDF officers this financial year but there was reportedly not enough money to pay all the increased salaries. (Read Stories Here and There).

Otafiire has in recent months been speaking truths to the Museveni government he works in. He told Ugandan youths to wake up and demand for accountability at a time, those who were calling out Speaker Anita Among for alleged corruption were facing jail. (See Details Here) and There).  

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