Speaker of parliament Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga has promised that parliament will tackle the issues of security in the country as soon as the budget is passed.
For the last three weeks, Members of Parliament have been raising issues of insecurity in the country with the Minister of Internal Affairs promising to come with a statement to parliament.
Kadaga says that Parliament plans to dedicate one or two sittings discussing issues of insecurity but this will be dealt with as soon as they have finalized with the budget process.
Uganda has experienced rising cases of kidnap for ransom over the last couple of years.
The highlight was this year’s kidnap and murder of Susan Magara even after her family paid hundreds of millions of shillings in ransom. While this vice is more pronounced in some cities across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Uganda has generally been spared. However, this is changing fast.
According to a report compiled by the police’s Flying Squad, cases of kidnap rose from 11 in 2016 to 24 in 2017. This tally is likely to double in 2018 as 22 cases have already been reported with only five months gone, the report states.
According to a statistics agency report from last year, which sourced its data to the police, there were nearly 4,500 murders in 2015, the last year for which those figures were available. But that was already nearly double levels in 2013.
