The Chief of Defence Forces, CDF Gen. David Muhoozi has asked Parliament to stop comparing Local Defence Unit, LDU officers to infamous crime preventers.
The UPDF has in the past weeks been recruiting LDUs at the orders of President Yoweri Museveni as a means to support police and military officers in stopping crime that has become rampant in urban centers.
While appearing before the defence committee of parliament on Wednesday, Gen. Muhoozi told legislators that it is unfair to compare the newly registered LDUs to crime preventers as they have been here before, and did a tremendous job in the past.
Unlike the crime preventers who were under the leadership of police (IGP Gen. Kale Kayihura), the LDU is under management of UPDF and will be armed. Members of the public and some politicians accused crime preventers of terrorizing people, stealing their properties and beating up others under the pretense of keeping law and order.
The CDF also revealed that LDUs unlike Crime preventers will be paid a salary equivalent to that of members of the auxiliary forces. “Auxiliary forces are an organized group supplementing but not directly incorporated in a regular military or police entity.”
However, the group will not be entitled to pension and gratuity but will walk away with a six months package upon demobilization. The force is targeting a number of 24000 LDU officers.
The president’s directive to recruit LDUs came after the murder of former Buyende DPC ASP Muhammad Kirumira. Mr. Museveni said if some people in the area were armed, they would have neutralized the killers.
