IGANGA, UGANDA: At least 120 frontline police officers in Busoga East policing region have been equipped with knowledge and skills of customer care through training on among others community policing.
Busoga East comprises of six districts of Iganga, Namutumba, Namayingo, Bugweri, Bugiri and Mayuge.
In a training organized by Uganda Police which took place on Friday at Sikezy hotel in Iganga, the acting commissioner community policing in the Uganda Police, ACP Muleterwa Anatoli who led the training says that they trained frontline officers through community policing by teaching them how to handle and serve their visitors with whom they always interact.
“We are aiming at customer care for frontline police officers through community policing. We train them how to handle and serve visitors who always visit them,” says ACP Muleterwa.
Mr Muleterwa says that they are training officers who deals directly with the community or public in their everyday work.
“We’re are training officers who deals or interacts directly with the public in their everyday work. They include our officers at checkpoints, our officers on patrols, officers dealing with journalists, those in community policing, officers handling child and family protection unit, criminal intelligence officers, those working on police counters, officers in charge police posts and police stations, and police officers handling police records,” Muleterwa said before adding that these officers connect the chain between the community and police through good service.
ACP Muleterwa said that they emphasized handling customers and how to convince them through good service. “In training them, we emphasized on how to handle their customers and how to serve them because if they leave contented then it paints a good picture of the force than otherwise. We trained them to adopt diligent service, service which unites and service which convinces someone that police is there for him or her,” he said.
Commissioner Muleterwa urged police officers to use their authority lawfully as provided for in the constitution of the Republic of Uganda.
“We urge our officers that even though we have authority, we should use it lawfully. We call upon the officers to behave well before the public because when we retire, we go back to the community,” ACP Muleterwa cautioned.
However, speaking to DailyExpress after the training, Busoga East Regional Police Commander SP Asiimwe Samuel says that 20 police officers were selected from every district in Busoga East region making a total of 120 officers who were reminded of their crucial work and equipping them with skills on how to handle the community in form of customer care and how they perform their duties as provided for in the constitution.
“120 Officers were trained and we picked 20 police officers from each district in Busoga East and the training was intended to remind them on what they are supposed to do as well as equipping them with skills on how to handle people in form of customer care and how they can perform their duties as provided for in the constitution,” SP Asiimwe said.
Mr Asiimwe said that complaints against police have been flooding from the public and they decided to engage their staff in a training. “Complaints exists like any other community because you can not satisfy everyone. We have been receiving complaints from the people that police officers don’t handle them well and we decided to call them for training such that we equip them with knowledge and skills to cooperate with the public as expected,” he said.
Meanwhile, some of the officers who attended the training commended the organizers for retooling them in good customer care and community policing.
The Community Liaison Officer (CLO) Namutumba district, IP Jane Namukuve testified that they received skills to fight lawlessness in their areas noting that they added on skills to fight mob justice through the training.
“The training was good and it added us more skills to fight criminality in our villages and workplace. The training added us more skills to execute good work in our communities like fighting lawlessness,” Namukuve said before adding that learning doesn’t stop since the more someone learns, the more skilled one becomes in whatever he or she does.
ASP Mikenga Ali, the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) Iganga CPS says that the training taught them how Locals can get involved in reducing crimes even without police on ground.
“The training was good because it taught us that locals can get involved in reducing crimes or fighting lawbreakers even in the absence of police”
“We were trained to go and inform the public that lawbreakers are amongst themselves and crimes are committed by them so the solution to this lies between the local people themselves,” ASP Mikenga said.
He pledged to exercise all skills from the training in his everyday work.
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