Africa-Press – Uganda. Police top officials were on Monday asked by legislators on the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to apologize for irregularities highlighted in the last financial year’s auditor general’s report.
These irregularities included detaining suspects past the stipulated 48-hour rule and the continued use of a shared bucket as a ‘toilet’ by detainees at several police stations.
However, SCP Felix Baryamwisaki, Director of ICT in the police, declined the legislators’ request for an apology, citing budget shortfalls and delays in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as the major reasons for the continued use of bucket-toilets in cells and the over-detention of suspects, respectively.
“You are busy abusing the constitutional provisions by detaining suspects beyond the stipulated time of 48 hours. And I have a concern because one of the police stations with this record is Kasangati, is it because it is near the residence of Mr Robert Kyagulanyi and Dr Kizza Besigye?” PAC chairperson, Mr Muwanga Kivumbi queried.
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Mr Kivumbi further reasoned that “if police lack capacity to investigate and produce the suspects for trial, they should be granted bail” adding that detention beyond the constitutional time is being used by the police as bait for extortions.
“Sometimes the files of these suspects are with the DPP and their continued stay in the cells is always on the advice of the DPP and some of these suspects are habitual offenders,” SCP Baryamwisaki responded.
In his 2022/2023 report, the auditor general (AG), Mr John Muwanga noted that at least 362 suspects were found to be detained beyond 48 hours in the sampled 42 police stations. The AG further observed that out of the 60 sampled police cells, a total of 19 were still using the banned bucket system for toilets.
“In this era and age, you are still using the bucket system. This is very primitive, we need a list of all those cells that are still using the bucket system so that as Parliament we can allocate money specifically to eliminate a bucket system rather than adding you money for teargas,” Mr Kivumbi said.
The committee members were also irked by the auditor general’s findings, which indicated that a number of police stations did not have separate detention cells, bundling women, men, children and those with special needs in the same cells, with only 11 of the 72 sampled police stations having all the cell for each category.
“Considering that police has a construction unit and if it really looked at separation of suspects as a priority issue, it would have constructed these separation units and this is leading to other vices like sexual abuses,” Ms Sarah Opendi (Tororo Woman MP) said.
Ms Gorreth Namugga, PAC vice chairperson argued that although almost all government entities are facing financial constraints “police’s failure to separate elders and children risks the health and mental health of these children.”
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