In pictures: Police passing-out at Kigo

PASSING-OUT CEREMONY

KIGO - The Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura presided over a passing-out ceremony for 210 police officers on Tuesday at the Police Marine Base in Kigo, on the shores of Lake Victoria.

The police officers completed a five-week training course in Kampala.

At the ceremony, Kayihura ordered an internal probe into allegations of corruption at the Police headquarters in Kampala.

The Police chief tasked the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) with specifically investigating the logistics and engineering departments, which handle billions in procurement deals.

"You must start with the Police headquarters," Kayihura ordered the PSU commandant, Joel Aguma.

The trainees were drawn from the departments of Criminal Investigations (CID), Crime Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and the Field Force Unit.

Frank Mwesigye (pictured second from left), the Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander, said the training was meant to enable the officers to operate in hostile environment full of hard-core criminals and sophisticated gangs.

Kayihura said the training would be rolled out to Police officers countrywide. 

After five weeks of grueling drills, the officers showed off special skills, such as target shooting and close combat.

"We started in Kampala because it is a highly populated area and a hub for hardened criminals. We will roll it out across the country so that our officers have skills and knowledge to handle crime," said police boss Kayihura.

Although impressed by the skills displayed by the trainees, Kayihura was irked that the Police's human resources directorate was not represented at the ceremony.

"Where is human resource management to update these people's files. They are not bothered. When you look at their files (trainees'), they are empty," he complained.

"There are no performance evaluation reports. Even last year's evaluation report is not on my desk; I would be surprised to find it tomorrow,"  said the IGP.

He asked Aguma to extend the corruption probe to the human resources directorate, where he said officers are fond of sneaking names onto lists for promotions in exchange for bribes.