OPINION

By Herbert Anderson Burora

While passing out Police officers in 2008, President Yoweri Museveni directed the armed officers should have duty free schemes and supermarkets.

To that effect, the Police rolled that out in 2010, the Uganda Prisons Services around 2008 while the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, through the Ministry of Defence, pays taxes on building materials that that are currently restricted to cement, iron bars, tiles and iron sheets.

In order to decentralise, there are currently Police duty free shops in 13 out of 28 regions, while those for Prisons are active in 12 out of 19 regions. Whereas the operational shops are meant to be in every district, facilities have not limited their expansions.

According to the Police’s records, about 15,000 officers have been able to benefit from this initiative. The Prisons duty free shop has benefited everyone apart from trainees while a convincing number in the UPDF has benefited. According to the revelation, it is surprising that the Government has already impacted officers silently, which is why we have seen less hostilities amongst them than we can imagine. It is, therefore, unfair for anyone without a burden to find out, to sit in their “comfort” and discredit the Government for not reviewing the welfare of officers yet it is already impacting on them through several interventions.

Most politicians have taken it on themselves not to understand government interventions in the lives of citizen, but use their ignorance to brand it worry-less. Surprisingly for long, politicians have incited officers to rebel against the Government and one wonders why they have been ignored.

It is because the majority of the officers are benefiting from the President’s eagle eye of impacting officers materially.

The President’s idea was that if we concentrated on the infrastructure of officers’ residential units, the comfort would impact on officers.

The Government is now constructing on duty housing units for officers. Pictures on social media have been awash with the dilapidated Police and army barracks. One wonders why no one labours to find out the positives of the Government as a sign of hope that since this has been done, even others will be done. Is it because it is the positives that are not impacting on people greatly or that it is the negatives that are having a toll on Ugandans?

The question is that, on top of the several interventions to impact on the lives of officers, why do some pseudo elite prefer to promote what is yet to be done at the expense of what has been achieved?

The discussion of salary review is a welcome idea, but not plausible for reasons dictated by the economic entanglements we are currently involved in as a country.

The President’s idea that has been partially implemented is in the future to have supermarkets for officers in uniform but also to upgrade the current scheme into a fully-fledged hardware with all materials required for construction work.

The Police should emphasise on streamlining the Police Exodus SACCOS in order to save officers from moneylenders whose rates are not only high but also the terms of repayment are not fit for salary earners.

What is key is to focus on how to listen to the challenges of others and then address them accordingly without finding fault. Glorifying mistakes and giving them justification is an issue that Let us embrace Ubuntu even to those we disagree with for disagreement is not a yardstick to call for enmity as a result.

The writer is the deputy resident city commissioner — Rubaga