By KT Reporter
The Inspector General of Police, Abas Byakagaba, has urged private security organisations (PSOs) to clean and clear their companies of wrongdoers who have sometimes engaged in dubious acts such as escorting criminals.
Byakagaba, who met PSO proprietors in Friday, said the recruitment processes should be thorough to ensure every recruit’s conduct information is collected before they are deployed with guns which they could turn into weapons for acts like robbery.
According to Byakagaba, the onus should be on every person involved in private security services to ensure that all people with ill intentions are kicked out because it is a sector that is supplementing the national security and providing employment for many.
Police said when PSOs have well trained and well behaved personnel, they become liable for deployment when need arises. This, he said, has been witnessed in areas such as Old Kampala where PSO have severally coordinated with police personnel for operations.
The IGP urged PSOs to consider recruiting Polling Constables whose job tenure will be only three months and they will be available to recruitment. Uganda police has recruited 100,000 Polling Constables who are going to be trained for a month and be deployed for elections management starting from January 01 and will be out of job by end of March next year.
Byakagaba noted that the Polling Constables have been thoroughly scrutinized by ISO during the recruitment process and will be given the basic training which makes them be better targets for private security companies.
However, the IGP’s suggestion of PSOs recruiting Polling Constables after the elections period might be difficult to consider because of the huge salary disparities. For instance, PSOs rarely pay their personnel more than 300,000 shillings yet the Polling Constables are going to be 466,000 monthly.
Some private security guards have complained to the media and police that they are paid as little as 250,000 shilling monthly. That would be almost half of what a Polling Constable is going to earn monthly. The salary disparities are likely to scare many PSO from considering taking on Polling Constables after they lose jobs come March next year.
Meanwhile, Grace Matsiko, the Chairperson of PSOs Association, decried the overwhelming taxes they are being subjected to yet they are complimenting national security. Matsiko explained that charges for training are also expensive and they need to be helped.
PSOs also expressed concern over the police directive to have modern guns which are able to respond to the existing security threats. Police said some PSO have too old or outdated gun models which cannot march criminals who come with latest AK47 assault rifles.
However, Matsiko said the directive to have modern guns has become challenging because they are expensive to buy from the Army factories but also to hire from police force. Also importation of guns, according to Matsiko, is not cost effective because of taxes.
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