The Uganda Police Force has taken over the training of guards of Private Security firms in a move to streamline security services.
The government says this is to ensure that Uganda has well-trained security guards who aren’t a risk to the population.
The first cohort of 7,085 trainees is expected to complete training on 24th April 2026, funded by the Ugandan government.
The revelation was made by Gen 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 address 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 the 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, which 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 fingerprinted 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 the Police is charging Private Security Companies to train security guards, to which James Ochaya, Deputy Inspector of Police, revealed that the 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 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 the Police’s budget.
Kiwanuka also tasked the Minister to clarify on how conflict of interest is being handled following the emergence of UPDF into the private security realm, 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, of benefitting from advantage over other players in the industry.
The Minister defended UPDF’s decision to venture into private security, quoting the Uganda Peoples’ 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.