The State Minister for Internal Affairs, Gen David Muhoozi (pictured) has admitted that Police has no capacity to track stolen phones in Uganda and that such work can only be done by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
“Unfortunately, Police doesn’t have that capacity, it is mainly with the military maybe through this Committee if we can help the Police build that capacity to track phones, but we can still use the military capacity to track phones and I think military intelligence can help,” said Muhoozi.
The Minister made the admission while responding to a concern raised by Jimbricky Ochero (Labwor County) who revealed that two days back, there was a raid by cattle rustlers in Abim district that saw rustlers steal cattle and phones. They also raped women and attempts by the victims to track down their phones have been met with rude behavior from the rustlers picking up the calls and insult the victims.
The revelation saw Donozio Kahonda (Ruhinda North) express shock at the failure by Police to track down these phones, and asked the Minister to inform Ugandans whether when phones are stolen, the duty of facilitating the police officers should lie with the victims which has left Ugandans to shy away from reporting such cases.
“This is something very strange where the phones are even available, you call, they pick and they start abusing you, sicne you have the CID department we are talking of handling cyber, I don’t know if for you just deal where money is involved because we have also witnessed this that even when tracking is involved, some facilitation must be involved to the officer in order to track for you,” said Kahonda.
Although there were no specific figures on phone theft, in the 2022 Annual Crime report by Uganda Police, there were a total of 6,854 cases of Robberies were reported to the Police in 2022 compared to 5,275 cases reported in 2021, giving a 29.9% increase in this crime category.
By the end of 2022, out of the total cases of robberies reported to Police, 1,831 cases were taken to Court, 224 were not proceeded with, while 4,799 cases are still under inquiry. Out of the total cases taken to Court, 100 cases secured convictions, 01 case was acquitted, 06 cases were dismissed while, 1,724 cases are still pending in Court.
