MPs on Parliament’s Budget Committee have asked the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee to investigate allegations that police bosses are giving out fuel coupons to relatives, friends and some MPs, which has led to shortage and hike in fuel budget to the Force.
While appearing before the Budget Committee to present report of the 2022/2023 budget framework paper by the Committee of Defence and Internal Affairs, Rosemary Nakikongoro (Sheema DWR) asked the Budget Committee to approve the Shs205.668Bn for fuel and lubricants to Police because only Shs45.688Bn was approved leaving a shortage of Shs159.980Bn. The money is meant to support the 10,245 fleet of the Force.
“This fuel and lubricants, I don’t think any there is any MP who hasn’t contributed to this fuel, it is becoming a perpetual problem. You can imagine a District Police Commander (DPC) being given 10liters how do you manage?” asked Nakikongoro.
However, Ignatius Wamakuyu (Elgon County) said there is need for the sectoral Committee to look into the fuel usage within Police, after reports emerged that some of the coupons are dished out to civilians at the expense of taxpayers.
“We shouldn’t also rule out the issue of leakages because I normally pass by Nsambya barracks but you find private vehicles even sometimes the officers approach you and say I have my fuel and say, can you come and pick it? At one point here, there were some MPs who were said to have coupons, so we can’t rule out the leakages,” said Wamakuyu.
The revelation prompted Patrick Isiagi, Chairperson Budget Committee to order a probe into the management of the existing little fuel, adding that whereas the fuel may be little, there might be some wastage because the fuel money doesn’t trickle down to the districts and sub-county police.
“There is an imbalance in sharing. So the Committee should sit with Police and get the details of utilization of the little (fuel) so it gives us a way forward on whether if the amount is improved, it will be put to good use instead of injecting more resources which end up at headquarters …” said Isiagi.
Nakikongoro also asked the Budget Committee to approve the Shs1.591Trn for the construction of 43,000 new staff houses for its officers across the country, which could be spread across ten years with only Shs43Bn provided for in 2022/2023.
Geofrey Ekanya (Tororo North) wondered why Police doesn’t consider a private-public partnership to put up the housing facility.
“The way forward is to have immigrations, police and prisons create a project and it is funded under infrastructure multi-year because it is provided for in the Public Finance Management Act because you see, each vote wants to do a construction and yet this could be integrated under a multi-year commitment approved and we have housing,” said Ekanya.
The proposal was backed by Isiagi who said that the housing deficit within Police got so bad to the extent where families were sharing uniports, and in some cases, one family was eating meat and the other beans.
“The other family at night is sleeping, the other one start some other activity and children are there and tomorrow you expect the person to have a human heart. So when you talk about corruption, that is how it starts and there is a degeneration of decency and it comes to lack of facilities,” said Isiagi.
