A number of Special Police Constables who helped police the recently concluded general elections have expressed concern with police leadership’s delaying to pay their last month of service.
Ahead of presidential, parliamentary and local government elections, police recruited 50,000 SPCs whose major role was to guide voters at polling centres.
The SPCs started their work early January and their term of service ended on March 31 since it was only three months’ recruitment. Because Kampala City and Wakiso districts had more than a million voters each, they took a lion share of the SPC’s. Over 12,000 SPCs were recruited to man the voting centres.
However, some SPCs who spoke to Uganda Radio Network on condition of anonymity expressed concern that payment for their third month has delayed. Some said they had been informed that their salary had been withheld for unknown reasons.
“Our relevance stopped in March and we are in May which is also ending,” an SPC said. “We are waiting for our salary but it is not coming. Our commander has told us that our salary is being withheld but we don’t know the reasons.”
One of the police commanders intimated to URN that police leadership at Naguru headquarters noticed that the number of SPCs recruited in each division had been exaggerated. Police allegedly detected that figures of LDUs attached to stations and divisions kept changing every month, something they had to verify first.
“You know each division was allowed to recruit a specific number of SPCs. Every division trained its own SPCs. But there are those who were trained from Kigo marine base. Those are the ones police considered first. These other ones have been struggling to their money,” a police source said.
Police Spokesperson, Fred Enanga, has confirmed that there was a general delay for the last month salary for all SPCs countrywide but money has now been sent to respective regions except Kampala metropolitan. Enanga explained that salary for KMP SPCs is being withheld because there is verification being done.
“We also want to inform the public that the final payment for SPCs who supported the police in policing general elections has been released. For KMP, I think their salary may delay a bit because there some verification that are being done,” Enanga said.
SPCs who have already received their final payment have been urged to leave their uniforms, batoons and duty boots to respective areas of deployment. Police has warned that any SPC who disappears with such items could be charged with being in possession of government stores.
URN