The Inspector General of Police, Abbas Byakagaba has said the sub county policing model is currently taking shape with implementation already ongoing.
Addressing journalists on Wednesday, Byakagaba said the policing model is already being implemented in North West Nile, Rwizi, Kira, Rwenzori East, Sipi, Greater Masaka, Greater Bushenyi, and Albertine already implementing the new policing model.
Over 10,000 officers have so far been transferred to these areas to implement the new model.
“Each sub county will have an officer in charge of a police station, 12 personnel from general duties for carrying out patrols, an officer from CID, another one from crime intelligence, child and family protection unit and a Community Liaison Officer for connecting to the general population,” Byakagaba said.
He said they will have three motorcycles for each sub county and walkie-talkie radios to ease communication among police officers.
“We shall also have a counter phone at every subcounty. This number will be popularized to ensure every person is aware of this number to ensure people easily communicate to police station and response will be very quick,” Byakagaba added.
The new model
In 2020, President Museveni asked police to establish a subcounty policing model where each sub county has a police station with 18 or 20 officers and four motorcycles , two of which are for emergencies.
“What if we had a police station per sub county with 20 police officers? There are around 1600 sub counties in Uganda. That is a force of 32000,” Museveni said then.
He said this model would help deal with criminality, noting that a similar model was used by colonialists.
“The British had a simple plan for police. Because the colonialists didn’t have enough resources, their plan was through the chiefs – Muluka(parish) and sub-county chiefs. In my area of Ankole, there was only one police station in Mbarara but at sub-counties were askaris . The area was big but was being policed through parish chiefs and the sub-county chiefs. The system worked well,” Museveni said.
“These people(British) were managing a large area through skeleton police and it worked well. Because colonialists didn’t have enough resources, their plan was through chiefs at the parish and sub county. They(chiefs) would call the tenda(police patrol). I closely monitored it between 1951 and 1958 and I could see these people managing huge areas using a skeleton number of officers.”
According to Byakagaba, each sub county, municipality and town will have a police station , an officer in charge of it as the overall commander, 12 personnel from general duties for carrying out patrols, an officer from CID, another one from crime intelligence, one from the child and family protection unit and a community liaison officer.
He explained that in urban centres and cities, the wards will be the equivalent of the subcounty, adding that in areas where the sub counties are so big, the manpower will be increased accordingly.
According to IGP Byakagaba, despite the new policing model the police structure will remain the same, with the officers in charge of the subcounty police stations reporting to District/ Divisional Police Commanders (DPCs) who in return report to Regional Police Commanders.
“There is nothing that is going to change the structure of police. We are commanded from the top then to regions, districts and smallest units .Among those(small units) is the sub county police station which will still be under the DPC who will be in charge.”
He said in areas where there are no structures, the sub county police stations will be housed in semi-permanent structures like tents or uniports or any structure available.
“Government is going to support us establish sub county station including cells for holding suspects and accommodation of officers.”
Benefits
Byakagaba told journalists on Wednesday that the new policing model will decentralize police services but also ensure the force stops being only an urban force but also focus on rural areas.
“With the sub-county policing model, we shall achieve quick response to incidents and real time attention to matters affecting local communities. We hope at the minimum, we shall attain 85% of attention in real time of calls to people.We also expect this program to facilitate consolidated and functional police station readily available to attend to concerns and security problems of those particular area,” he said.
“We also expect to support and enable success of government programs like PDM, Emyooga, and all the other activities by individual citizens for purposes of enhancing well being.”
