NEWS EDITOR
AS President Museveni is expected to address the Nation today over Covid-19 update, Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander (KMP) CP Moses Kafeero has ordered Regional Police Commanders (RPCs) under his area of command to arrest incompent commanders who give way to unauthorised private vehicles during this lockdown!
In a tough message posted on Metropolitan Commanders forum, KMP Moses Kafeero has said, some commanders are likely to lose jobs and be arrested over their negligence due Covid-19 mismanagement.
KMP Kafeero to police commanders: “RPCs arrest any commander where a private vehicle is seen moving in his/her AOR (Area of operation). H.E the President was very clear (unless the private vehicle is carrying a medical emergency).”
“If a private vehicle is seen moving in an area, the area commander will have to be arrested. Enough is enough. Why do you allow them? We have warned you enough. I can not keep answering questions on your behalf.” Said KMP Kafeero.
He says, the letters of RCCs, RPCs and Deputy RCCs unless they are for medical emergency and that person is in the car, the rest must be ignored and vehicles that do not adhere should be impounded.
“Other cars allowed to move are vehicles with stickers from ministry of Works and then security vehicles with command. Some people will lose jobs due to Covid-19 mismanagement.” Warns Kafeero.
In operations carried out yesterday within Kampala, a number of private vehicles were impounded, officers were not listening to any one whatever your position, without an official sticker from the ministry of works.
Company cars with office stickers, we are reliably informed, will not be allowed to move.
This comes after H.E the President directed that all private vehicles are banned, following suspension of public transport.
WHAT IS WAS THE PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVES ON PRIVATE VEHICLES
The President said: I prohibit all people to people movement by everybody including those using their private vehicles, bodabodas, tuk-tuks, etc.
Why? Two reasons: (1) some private car owners have turned their cars into taxis, transporting the two people we had permitted, assuming that they would be members of one’s family, when in fact they were passengers being charged the exorbitant fare of shillings 50,000/- from Kampala to Jinja.
Hence, the problem we were trying to cure of allowing the mixing of people from different sources was not being addressed. Instead, it was taking new forms.
The people with private cars were now the new public transporters without licences and facilitating the dangerous mixing in the process.
(2) More importantly, even if the private car owners had been disciplined and only moved around with only the 2 members of their families, still that movement would be dangerous because we do not know who has the virus now and who does not, given the penetration of the imported cases into the society, short-lived though it may have been.
