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Internal affairs minister Maj. Gen. (rtd) Kahinda Otafiire has said the Police operations will be streamlined.

The minister said on Wednesday February 14, 2024 that the Crime Intelligence Directorate, for instance, should support the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) which investigates crimes.

“Crime Intelligence should support CID because it is the CID that investigates crimes and not Crime Intelligence. Crime Intelligence is supposed to tell CID what is going on unless CID follows from intelligence tip to investigate, but I hear crime intelligence officers also arresting, eh?” he wondered.

“If you arrest then you are not a crime intelligence officer. You can’t be a goat and then a dog. Either you are a goat or you are a dog; you can’t be both. So, we shall see how to streamline these operations,” the minister told regional and district/divisional CID officers at their headquarters in Kibuli, Kampala.

He made the remarks while presiding over the opening ceremony of the two-day training session for the CID officers in preparation for the National Information Registration Authority’s mass enrolment of 17.2 million citizens and renewal of 15.8 million national identity cards on June 1, 2024.

The minister also said he had written to the Inspector General of Police, Martin Okoth Ochola saying there is a “very serious compartmentalization within the Police”.

“Yes, you (CID officers) report to your bosses above you, but the district police commander should be aware of what you are doing. There are districts I go to and when you say, what is happening here, the district police commander is ‘angazi’. He doesn’t know what CID is doing or what the traffic officer is doing. And I say now are you a district police commander or just a tourist?” he said.

Otafiire also wondered how a district CID officer can be unable to move to certain places without the district police commander being aware of it.

“So, this business of compartmentalization has to stop. You do your work as CID but let your other supporting agencies be aware of what you are doing,” he said.