President Yoweri Museveni has directed the police leadership to enforce the use of radios and dump mobile phones if they are to do their work well and arrest dangerous criminals.
The President gave the directive on Friday afternoon while delivering the State of the Nation Address to the new members of Parliament at Kololo.
The Commander In Chief said that the police abandoned the use of radios and now use mobile phones which are unreliable. He says this started during the regime of Gen. Kale Kayihura as IGP. He says a mobile phone communicates to one person, why a radio message is received by everyone.
“Police work on a network, it is like a village where you make ‘Enduuru’, because when you make enduuru, the whole village wakes up. The camera people when they are watching and they see something like that, they should shout and say, wuuyo wuuyo wuuyo and then everybody should be on the same network hearing. Not looking for the DPC who is asleep, we don’t need the DPC but the people on duty. Henceforth, police is directed again to stop using mobile phones, and go back to using radios that are open to all stations so that they can act promptly in emergencies like the one of Gen. Katumba” the Commander in Chief directed.
He noted that in addition to the cameras, security agencies are working on installing digital monitors in all motor vehicles and motorcycles so that wherever the officers go, the command post can know.
“I know some people want to hide where they are going for some simple reasons, but please, we have got very serious issues we are dealing with. You will have to forgive us” he noted.
He revealed that Gen. Katumba and Gen. Tumwine were the people working on this system. He warned that if anyone attempts to tamper with it, the command post will know. The technology will also work on the boats.
“The country is secure, these people who were involved in the Katumba incident, I’m sure we shall get them, because we already have good leads. We shall get them, and I am following very closely” the President revealed.
Meanwhile, the president says the shooting at the vehicle of Gen. Katumba Wamala has exposed the poor organization in the police Force.
While commenting on the incident that happened on Tuesday this week, when unidentified gunmen intercepted Gen. Katumba’s vehicle and spread it with bullets killing two people instantly, Mr. Museveni said the cameras he put in place are doing a great job, but the monitoring team of police is a mess.
“The cameras I put in place did their work as you saw the killers were running from one area to another area, why didn’t the camera centre alert all the patrol cars and even the UAVs (we have them and they can follow you anywhere once they are deployed), to chase and block these killers? No, these wonderful camera managers think that their gadgets are only for storing videos for forensic analysis as part of the postmortem of the operation” the President said.
He noted that while indeed the cameras are for forensic, but that they should also be used to make an alarm in case of such an attack, like what happened on Tuesday.