By John Odyek

Small arms, light weapons and ammunition given to armed forces and civilians will be marked and electronically registered.

Lt. Col. Fred Karara, the UPDF deputy inspector general of military equipment, said: “We are going to create a central database for all small arms, light weapons and ammunition in Uganda. We have received equipment from the Nairobi Regional Centre for Small Arms and Light Weapons to carry out the exercise.”

Karara is also the deputy manager of the National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons.

He told journalists yesterday that the registration of weapons and ammunition was manually done, which made it difficult to monitor and trace them.

Karara said electronic registration would enable the prevention of crime, conflicts and political instability.

Addressing a press conference at the Ministry of Internal Affairs boardroom in Kampala, Karara said the marking equipment and the arms database would be held by the internal affairs ministry.

He said the exercise would start with a two-day workshop for officers from the UPDF, Prisons and the Uganda Wildlife Authority at the Sports View Hotel in Kampala.

The trained officers will then move to different parts of the country to mark the weapons and ammunition, Karara added.

He said experts from South Africa had arrived in the country to carry out the training.

Ahmed Wafuba, the commissioner of Police in charge of private security organisations said the mark on the weapons would read ‘ug’, which will enable easy identification of the weapons in any part of the region.

Other countries in the region would also have marks on their weapons to be traced back to their country of origin in cases of misuse, Wafuba added.