Police To Reduce Crime Response Time To 5 Minutes

The former Interpol Chief and now police Chief Political Commissar Asan Kasingye has said that Police hopes to reduce 15 minute Police response time in case of a crime or any emergency crisis to 5 minutes.

While making a presentation on the current security situation in the country at Uganda media center on Friday evening, Kasingye emphasized supervision, inspection, mobilization and sensitization of the members of public if the above objective is to be successfully achieved.

“With this, it means we are going to reduce 15 minutes response time to 5 minutes and below,” said Kasingye.

The 15 minutes response time means that it takes Police 15 minutes to reach at the scene of crime to combat the unfortunate development which Kasingye said they are endeavoring to reduce to 5.

This is part of the “Tokola 3” operation which has been introduced by the Deputy Inspector General of Police Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeyi to crack down and dismantle criminal gangs in Kamala and its suburbs as instructed by president Museveni.

Implementing the operation on Thursday this week, Police raided various buildings in Kampala such as Majestic plaza, Cooper complex and Mutasa Kafeero and suspected stolen mobile phones and laptops worth millions of shillings were impounded.

Though people have always known 999 as police emergency response number, Kasingye said they will soon introduce Police counter numbers in all communities which will be monitored 24 hours and every member of the community will be required to have it to alert the police in case of any emergency crisis.

“We will have counter numbers. Every person in the community must know the counter number of the station. The number is monitored 24/7. Police officers must be at the counter receiving calls,” he added.

Kasingye highlighted three key reasons why criminals have been successful in executing crime which included taking long to be caught, failure to be produced to court after being caught and reluctancy in prosecuting them while in courts of law.

As a result he noted that if the operation is to achieve results, there must be robust investigations and prosecution.

“We would want that every case that has been registered and responded to is investigated as quickly as possible and is taken to Court. Someone must know that a certain officer is the one investigating my case. The business of police officers just giving references and case is not followed should end”

He further emphasized personal responsibility, security and vigilance if persistent crime in Kampala is to end.

Meanwhile, it could be hard to end crime in Uganda because the Police population ratio stands at 1:900 against the international standards of 1:500.

This means that Uganda needs 84,000 strong Police personnel to meet the international standards.

Making a comment on the above, Kasingye said there is need to revamp community policing and as a result, he already presented a paper to Inspector General of Police Martin Okoth Ochola over the matter.

The chairman Uganda Human Rights commission (UHRC) Meddie Kaggwa while making his presentation said he last month had a meeting with security chiefs over insecurity and abuse of human rights in the country and emphasized vigilance amongst members of the general public.

“We are the custodians of our rights and security. It starts with us. We are going to continue working with all security agencies. We should be vigilant,” said Kaggwa.

On the matter that Police has been pinned in various reports to be the leading human rights abuser, Kaggwa citing Article 221 of the constitution said all security organs should respect human rights.

He called for civic education amongst security forces to act professionally.