The deputy Inspector General of Police, Brig Sabiti Muzeeyi Magyenyi has cautioned police officers on healthy living, asking that they endure and remain healthy especially in the current wave of HIV/Aids and Hepatitis B in order to serve longer in the Force and to provide support to their families.
Brig Sabitti was presiding over the pass out of police officers at the Kampala Metropolitan Police Basic Management (3rd Intake) at Kigo Marine Base on Sunday.
“You should fight stigma for stigma is for those that are not aware,” he said while thanking the spouses of the officers for endurance and support throughout the training.
The course is a requirement on officers as passed by a resolution of the Uganda Police Council which directed all directorates, departments and regions to conduct regular internal capacity building programmes for personnel and to embrace the idea of internal trainings.
Officers are taken through fitness training, time management, discipline, teamwork, response to emergency calls, attitude towards work, working relationship between juniors and their commanders, mental preparedness, operational mistakes committed overtime like shooting of innocent citizens due to stray bullets and missed targets, among others.
Brig Sabitti urged trainees to use the skills acquired in a manner that builds the image and mandate of the Uganda Police Force.
Alluding to a quote Edmund Burke that says “Evil exists when good men do nothing”, the DIGP lauded Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander Frank Mwesigwa and his team for the initiative.
On the militirisation of police, Brig Sabitti said Ugandans needs to know that the policing environment has changed overtime. It encompasses violent criminals in local societies, organised and transnational crimes where police has to respond as the first line of defense in national security.
“The police should at all times be ready to perform functions of a military force as guided by the Police Act,” he said.