President Yoweri Museveni has ordered traffic officers off roads. In a recording obtained from Radio Simba, Mr. Museveni, while at his Kawumu farm in Luwero, ordered traffic officers to ‘go home’.
“I think the other thieves use the thieves in white (pretending) that they are traffic police…… They look like angels but (can) you find stealing angels … I have been telling Kale Kayihura (IGP) that those stupid people there in white just disturb people,” said a seemingly furious Museveni.
“They should go away; go home. With cameras you can sit in one place and see; who’s over speeding, who’s what…you don’t have this backwardness of people in white that they are controlling traffic yet they are actually inconveniencing traffic,” he said.
Mr. Museveni’s directive came just hours after he ordered for the installation of cameras on roads in all major towns of the country, the order coming on the backdrop of the murder of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP), Andrew Felix Kaweesi, who was killed last Friday.
Responding to the murder on Saturday, Mr. Museveni ordered for the procurement of cameras, and the following day while addressing mourners at Kaweesi’s home, he revealed that government had already put aside Shs400billion to purchase the cameras.
Efforts to contact Mr. Museveni’s Press Secretary Innocent Don Wanyama over the directive were futile by press time.
This is not the first time that Mr. Museveni and the police administration are having problems with the traffic police; in 2014 the Inspector General of Police General Kale Kayihura ordered traffic policemen off the Kampala-Gulu-Nimule highway, on allegations of corruption.
