Gen Muhoozi explains why crime rate is high in Uganda

The Minister of State for Internal Affairs Gen. David Muhoozi has decried the high crime rate in Uganda. He attributes the increasing rate to the removal of Covid-19 lockdown.

Gen. Muhoozi made the revelation on Thursday at the office of the Prime Minister while presenting a report on the implementation of National Resistance Movement (NRM) manifesto commitments where he said that before the Covid-19 outbreak, the crime rate in Uganda was relatively low.

“The Volume of crime has been on a downward trend since 2017 from 252,065 crimes to 195,931 in 2020 when the country experienced the Covid-19 lockdown. Thereafter, there has been a seeming rise in the crime trends from 196,081 in 2021, to 231,653 in 2022, when the lockdown was eased,” he said.

Gen Muhoozi added that the indices of crime in the country in the period under review indicate: Number of criminal cases registered annually since July 2021 to date increased from 196,081 cases to 231,653 cases, posting a crime rate of 524 per 100,000 people. Which is attributed to the opening up of the economy from the Covid-19 lockdown.

“At least 90,182 Criminal suspects were apprehended and successfully prosecuted due to improvements at CID in case management. The typology of the cases registered indicates both the capital as well as the petty crime categories in their variety, with the latter being more pronounced. The major crimes registered include terrorism, robberies, cybercrime, narcotics, trafficking and human trafficking as well as theft of especially livestock,” he said.

According to the 2022 major crimes report, terrorism crimes were 15, Homicide Cases 4,043, Robberies 6,854, Narcotics 2,797, Cybercrime 286, and Human Trafficking 1,200. However, Gen Muhoozi explained that a high incidence in the capital category of robberies, homicides and Narcotics respectively is because of the adverse economic situation globally post Covid-19 as well as the increased rural-urban migration and its pressures.

He also revealed that in Uganda the police-to-population ratio which is 1:800 against a target of 1:500 is also another challenge that must be addressed with immediate effect.

“Currently according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Uganda’s population is estimated to be 45,653,000. Given the recommended United Nations policing ratio of 1:500, Uganda should have a Police Force with a strength of 91,306. The current strength of the Uganda Police Force is 50,826 leaving a gap of 40,480,” he said.

“CCTV cameras some are not functionals for various reasons including discoordination by other service providers. You find sometimes road works interrupt the CCTV structures. We need a cross-government approach in the layout of this infrastructure so as to serve well their purposes,” he said.

The Minister however asserted that despite the limited budget, the ministry has put up several strategies to ensure that crime rates in Uganda decrease.

Such strategies included; Fingerprinting of guns, where out of the 73,982 arms test fired, a total of 50,377 guns have been data captured. Out of the arms test fired, 49,838 guns belong to the police (93.3 per cent), 2,957 to the prisons (99 per cent), 18,602 to PSOs (100 per cent), and 2,585 to private individuals/civilians (64.5 per cent).

“During the period under review, additional 3-Dimesional Integrated Ballistic Information System (IBIS) sets were acquired to enhance our capacity to trace firearms used in committing a crime where 521 incidences were linked to reported cases,” he said.

Gen. Muhoozi also added that there has been an enhancement of the Uganda Police Force’s Capacity to enable it effectively do its job.

“The response posture has been enhanced through a raft of measures namely: The reorganization of the Flying Squad. This important capability has been rebuilt and reorganized. The 999 Field units have been deployed in all the 18 divisions of KMP with the attendant re-activation of the 999/112 Emergency dispatch system.”