Grapevine

Police operations hit by acute car shortage

The Uganda Police Force has been hit by a serious shortage of vehicles, especially for patrol duties, which has hindered operations, especially in the Kampala Metropolitan Police area and other parts of the country.

Mr Linos Ngompek, the Kibanda North Country legislator, who is also the deputy chairperson of Parliament’s Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs, told Sunday Monitor that matters are not helped by the age of the fleet.

“Most of the fleet they have were procured more than 10 years ago while Gen Kayihura was the Inspector General of Police. Such an old fleet cannot really help the Force to manage the ever increasing crime rate,” Mr Ngompek said.

Sources within the Force indicated that the Kampala Metropolitan Police area, which is divided into three policing regions, namely Metropolitan Police East, North and South, has less than a dozen of functioning patrol cars, a figure which is disputed by Kituuma Rusoke, the Force’s spokesperson.

“Of course we cannot give you the statistics because that is classified information, but I crosschecked with commander- KMP and the director of operations, and they assured me that it is not true. What I can tell you is that every division of Kampala has at least one functional patrol car,” Mr Rusoke said.