President Musveveni has said CCTV cameras should be installed at the police station counters to enable monitoring of the performance of police officers whenever a crime is reported.
While commissioning the National CCTV Camera Command Centre at Police Headquarters at Naguru on Thursday, President Museveni said the CCTV cameras will deal with both crimes in the community and incompetence within the police force.
“I want to see what they [police officers] are doing. I don’t want to monitor only the criminals, but also my own group. How they do their work,” President Museveni said.
Meanwhile, the President said that it is wrong for anybody to think that they can discredit his government using crime, saying that such people would do well to find another constituency.
“We are going to defeat crime. I don’t know why these people had sought to use crime to discredit the NRM yet security is my area, my constituency. So, that is a wrong battleground for anybody. If you want to challenge Uganda on the security side then you should look for another constituency,” Gen Museveni said.
President Museveni emphasized the need for all Officers in the Uganda Police to be more patriotic and regard all Ugandans as a family adding that anybody who does not love Ugandans is an enemy of the people.
“You must look at Uganda and Africa as a family. You must be someone who will not tolerate the harming of families. That is why we went to Mozambique because those people were oppressed. That is also why, we in the National Resistance Army (NRA), were able to do a lot. We looked at Ugandans as our family. Patriotism – fatherland. If you have this in your head, you will not neglect your duty,” he stressed.
President Museveni was happy to note that the cameras have already yielded fruits in helping to identify the criminals who murdered Nagirinya and also the passenger who strangled the boda-boda rider and stole the rider’s motorbike.
He said government is now going to embark on digital identification of vehicles and boda-boda in order to effectively defeat crime.
“When the Sheihks were murdered and others like Kagezi, Kirumira and Abiriga, we were depending on human information. That is why we said No! We must go a bit modern and implement this project. This is just the beginning. We are going to tighten the fight against crime and defeat it,” he said.
He also pointed out that another challenge was lack of linkage between the public and the Police stations. He, therefore, urged the Police to provide the public with numbers they can call once in distress. He further urged the Police to always be on standby to swiftly respond to such calls by rapidly moving to the scene of the incident.
President Museveni thanked HUAWEI Uganda Safe City Project staff, led by their Director, Mr. Yang Tao, for their support in the implementation of the project adding that China is always a good friend of Africa. “We shall continue working with them,” he added.
State Minister for Internal Affairs, Hon. Obiga Kania, hoped that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and staff will put the facility to proper use for effectively defeating and preventing crime.
The Inspector General of Police, John Martins Ochola, noted that the facility will, among other things, be able to help in identifying the location of distress calls as well as in the investigations.
Minister for Security, Gen. Elly Tumwine, Chief of the Defence Forces, Gen. David Muhoozi, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Gen. Muzeeyi Sabiiti and a number of senior security officials, were at the function