President Yoweri Museveni has said that the problems that have been hampering Police from securing Ugandans have been sorted since he was able to remove the “weevils” that had infested the Police Force.
The President made the parabolic statement on Thursday while presiding over the Women’s Day celebrations in Mityana district.
While many were left guessing what the President could have been implying by “weevils”, some Ugandans have linked the statement to the recent sacking of Police chief, Gen Kale Kayihura amid a build up of accusations that he was superintending over a Force with rogue elements.
He also alluded to some of the Senior Police officers who were arrested last year and are battling charges of murder and illegal repatriation of refugees to Rwanda.
Weevils or seed beetles are a subfamily of beetles mostly unpopular for destroying bean and maize grains.
While addressing issues of security that have recently dominated public discourse, the President promised to install CCTV cameras in major towns across Uganda.
“We are going to make sure all major towns have eyes everywhere. We are going to fight battles with these criminals.”
He added: “We had captured the criminals but police had been infested by weevils.”
He cited the case of those who were murdering women in Entebbe saying they are now in prison.
“The ones I don’t know yet are the ones who murdered Joan Kagezi, the muslim clerics and Felix Kaweesi.”
On the issue of crime, Museveni said he concentrated on defining terrorists in the bush. No one should worry that Uganda is in any kind trouble.
“But we now have criminals and murderers in town, it’s becoming a problem we have to tackle.”
Museveni appealed to MPs, that in the budgeting after dealing with big issues like security, roads, and hospitals, they should put more money in the wealth funds because this is now the bank which can enable these women develop their own properties.
The President instructed his staff to record all the exhibitors during the women’s day celebrations so that they are supported to improve their products.
“If we empower these people who are exhibiting , and we empower the graduates in incubation centres at Makerere University, we shall implement enhanced import substitution and enhanced export promotion,” he explained.
On balance of trade, he revealed that Uganda used to import USD 7 billion worth of goods, but it’s now coming down to USD 6billion.
“If you see what Uganda is exporting to Kenya, it is almost equal to what Kenya is exporting to Uganda,” the President said.