Police Takes Over Training Of Private Security Guards

David Muhoozi, Minister of State for Internal Affairs

Uganda Police Force has taken over the training guards of Private Security Organisations in move to streamline security services.

Government says this is to ensure that Uganda has good security guards that aren’t a risk to the population.

The first cohort of 7,085 trainees is expected to complete training on 24th April 2026, and the training is being funded by taxpayers in Uganda.

The revelation was made by David Muhoozi, Minister of State for Internal Affairs, while appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs, on 23rd March 2026, during the consideration of a petition by Private Security Organisations.

Minister Muhoozi noted, “In the proposed review of the regulations, we propose that the private security guards will be either trained from police training schools or police trainers are deployed to accredited Private Security Organisations (PSOs) at a subsidised cost to ensure quality standardised training. Actually, as we speak now, we have something like 7,085 undergoing training by the police free of charge in some of our schools for private security organisations and these belong to different agencies or private security organisations.”

The Minister also revealed that a standard training curriculum was recently developed which will be essential for enhancing professionalism and also ensuring consistent high-quality services that addresses critical security challenges in order to improve public perception and confidence.

This is also to ensure compliance with the legal requirements.

Although Wilson Kajwengye (Nyabushozi County) backed Government’s proposal to regulate training of private security guards, arguing that trade in security especially with a gun, is not like trading in chapati or mandazi, he however called for an independent law to regulate private security because currently, the regulation of the sector is being done under the Police Act.

He further revealed that if Uganda came up with such a law, it wouldn’t be the first nation to do so, as South Africa that has over 500,000 private security guards has an Act to regulate the sector.

Frank Mwesigwa, Director Operations at Uganda Police Force informed Parliament that currently, Uganda has 457 registered Private Security Organisations and these currently have 82,697 guards and in their possession are 28,187 finger printed guns, and these are supplemented by the 2,000 owned by Uganda Police on a hire basis.

Abdallah Kiwanuka (Mukono North) MP sought clarification on how much Police is charging Private Security Companies to train security guards, to which James Ochaya, Deputy Inspector of Police revealed that Police is conducting the training on their own budget, and the first cohort is undergoing training as Police Training School in Kabalya (Masindi district) that will last for a month.

Minister Muhoozi defended the funding modality and said that since the ongoing training is the first of its kind, this has created the need for a framework to streamline the training modalities and see how the costs will be incorporated in Police’s budget.

Kiwanuka also tasked the Minister to clarify on how the conflict of interest is being handled following the emergence of UPDF into private security arena, revealing that the development is what instigated the petition to Parliament, as the other players in private security accuse National Enterprise Corporation (NEC), the investment arm of UPDF is getting a fair advantage over the other players in the industry.

The Minister defended UPDF’s decision to venture into private security quoting the Uganda People’s Defence Forces Act that spells out the functions of the UPDF that include the need to contribute to the economic development of Uganda, arguing that UPDF isn’t reinventing the wheel, because that is also done elsewhere.