By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA
The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has called on the government to improve the welfare of police officers and prisoners to ensure proper hygiene and disease control in facilities
The call follows a recent police annual crime report 2023, release which indicated a drop in the use of “soil bucket system” inside prison facilities, but UPC says there is still need for more water-borne toilets.
“As a country, we need to step it up to 100% facility of water-borne toilets as well as improving the welfare of the inmates. We shall try as much as possible not to overcrowd our facilities. This can help in ensuring control of some diseases,” said Muzeyi Faizo, head of media and communications at UPC.
According to the UPC, many police officers across the country are poorly housed, facilitated which affects the way they carry out their works.
“They need better accommodation and pay as well as reduced workloads as per United Nations police to population ratio recommendation of 1-1450, which we are yet to achieve,” says UPC.
Although the police annual crime report indicated a 1.5 percent drop in crimes, UPC says many Ugandans are hesitant to report cases to police due to poor relationships between police and members of the communities. They advised for enhanced security, community policing and the use of digital technology to detect and respond to crimes, and proper records keeping to facilitate quick reference to cases.
A recent study by the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) indicates that only 29% of police officers live in decent housing.
“At least 33% live in dilapidated structures, 2% in makeshift accommodation and 32% in moderately decent housing. The study found that even the 32% that described their housing as moderately decent were just comparing with their colleagues who lived in makeshift structures, otherwise the institutional accommodation was largely dilapidated, with shared rooms partitioned by either curtains or makeshift boards; condemned structures unfit for human habitation, uniports which are very uncomfortable,” the report says.
