Gen. Kale Kayihura the Inspector General of police was on Tuesday morning appearing before the Land commission of Inquiry to answer questions regarding police involvement in illegal land evictions.
This followed the summons issued to him recently by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire the commission’s chairperson.
According to the summon, a group of traders from Aldina Twegaise in Jinja complained that police gave clearance to an illegal eviction that saw their shops on plot 60-62 along Aldina Visram road in Jinja town demolished.
The traders accused the late AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi of unlawfully clearing the said eviction and demolition of their shops at night without a court order.
However Kayihura who led a delegation of over ten police officers from the police Headquarters at Naguru denied knowledge of the said matter before the commission and only learnt of this in March 2015 from the office of the speaker of Parliament.
Kayihura explained that at the time of the said evictions, he was busy hunting for the murderers of Muslims sheikhs and also regretted the circumstances under which the late Kaweesi whom he said was not a lawyer by training could have gone ahead to sanction an eviction at 3 am without clearance by court.
“Evictions are executed by court bailiffs and police are there to keep law and order. Police have no authority to execute eviction.” Kayihura said.
Kayihura also pledged to support the commission and the fight unlawful evictions since the police has transformed compared to the previous years.
“As an institution, we acknowledge our weaknesses and I think acknowledging weaknesses is part of problem-solving. I want to assure you that police force is transforming. The way force has been engaging with people is better than it used to be in 2006.”
