A police officer deployed in Moroto district is struggling to cope after her requests for a transfer reversal failed, forcing her to leave her infant children in the care of neighbours in Kampala city.
A single mother police officer says is said to be enduring emotional distress after leaving her two young children alone at Nsambya barracks so she can remain in service and pay for their education. Neighbours have told Uganda Radio Network on condition of anonymity that the worry over their welfare and safety has made it difficult for her to concentrate at even at work.
The officer was among those affected by the June transfers from Kampala to various parts of Karamoja sub region, where she was posted in one of the police stations in Moroto district.
“The transfer came as a shock when I was transferred with colleagues and the transfers were taking immediate effect,” a neighbour quotes the distressed officer. The neighbours say the officer wanted to take her children but realising there was no accommodation, she abandoned the idea and left them behind to the mercy of well-wishers. They say the single mother officer pays for the children’s meals at a food kiosk and visits them whenever she can, relying on neighbours to bathe for her while she is away serving in Moroto.
“You can’t protest a transfer because it is part of the job we signed for,” she has been telling neighbours who think she is reckless to leave the infants alone, adding that she has been begging for a reversion of the transfer. She has reportedly told the neighbours that her request lodged in June at the human resource department has not been responded to.
Sources at Naguru police headquarters say many other officers were affected by the transfers, particularly those who were serving at Parliament after the deployment of parliamentary police was cut from 400 to 200 in June this year.
Soon after his election, Speaker Jacob Oboth-Oboth pledged to review the parliamentary budget and streamline it, saying he would cut expenses and redirect funds from what he termed wasteful expenditure to committees and other departments in greater need.
From Police Headquarters, Spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke told Uganda Radio Network that the force faces the challenge of officers who apply for jobs but later complain about transfers. He reminded them of their oath to serve anywhere in the country in any situation.
“You should be ready to work in any part of the country and having children or not cannot be the reason why your transfer should be reverted,” Kituuma said. “The only reasons why a police officer can be exempted from deployment to any area are two: being transferred to your home area, which borders on ethnicity, or having a serious medical condition.”
He added that officers with serious medical conditions must prove with medical evidence that they need treatment not available in their area of deployment. On the case of an officer with children left in Kampala, Kituuma advised her to take along her children to Moroto district. He said Moroto is relatively better compared to areas like Kalenga district or Migingo Island, where police officers cannot even find a normal house.
On whether the Family Protection Unit-FPU offers support to police officers to prevent family breakdowns, Kituuma said the directorate’s role is to enforce law and order in families experiencing disputes, including those of police officers and members of the public.
According to Kituuma, officers cannot get support from the Directorate of Welfare and Production on such matters because they are handled by Human Resource Management, which only considers transfers on serious grounds and does not permit transfer reversals over children left behind.
“Our officers join young and later get families,” Kituuma added. “The policy is that you move with your family wherever you are posted in any part of the country. Only in specific operations can children be left in holding barracks for a limited time.”
Besides medical conditions and ethnicity, police human resource also considers reversals or accepts requests from officers of retirement age who wish to remain close to their home areas. Sudden or punitive transfers to remote, hostile, or hard-to-reach areas are widely documented as a major contributor to low morale, and desertion within police force.
Sources in the Directorate of Human Resource say most desertions from the force are of officers deployed in the Field Force Unit, General Duties, Anti-Stock Theft Unit and Crime Intelligence-CI-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
