As Uganda prepared for 2016 general elections, the Uganda Police Force acquired new state of art and sophisticated spy choppers to crack down rioters in the elections.

On November 27, 2015, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni commissioned the two choppers at Entebbe airbase at a function that was attended by top police bosses, air force commanders the Uganda people’s defense forces and the Uganda prisons services.

Gen Kale Kayihura, the IGP (then) told the President the two copters Agusto Westland 1098P an 8 seater from Italy and Sokol W3A 14 seater from Poland have sophisticated gadgets which will help to crack down on criminals who will want to destabilize the country during and after the elections.

“We are going to work with the electoral commission to make sure that we track down these criminals during the coming elections,” he said.

Kayihura until his sacking this month had been praised by the President previously for defeating the opposition politicians’ sinister plans of overthrowing the regime.

Kayihura further assured his boss Museveni that two choppers have got very sensitive and strong cameras with night vision capability which can capture images at night and can follow criminals even during the dark.

Through Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police had ordered the aircrafts mid 2014 on undisclosed amount.

Junk

The two choppers procured to transport troops and VIPs are currently grounded at Kajjansi airfield after they got a mechanical breakdown less than a year since President Yoweri Museveni commissioned them at Entebbe.

Whereas Police has been tight-lipped on this saga, a source who is a high-ranking officer said the procurement was handled by three directors; AIGP Godfrey Bangirina who heads Transport and Engineering, Rogers Muhirwe- the undersecretary and Amos Ngabirana- director of ICT, who has since fled the country after President Museveni ordered for his sacking and subsequent arrest.

Although police didn’t disclose the amount of money used to buy these junk helicopters, a source said police paid billions of shillings for this deal.

“Even the pilots recruited from the army to fly the choppers have been rendered jobless prompting them to run away from the police. We don’t know their whereabouts. The choppers are rotting away at Kajjansi airfield,” a source that earlier preferred anonymity told this website.

Emilian Kayima, the Police Spokesperson couldn’t respond to our queries on these junk aircrafts when contacted.

Unverified information we further obtained reveals the manufacturers are still covering up these choppers until around November this year.

A source explained that the former police boss is responsible for this mess because he took part in procuring these planes to a point that he even flew to Italy to test them.

Until his sacking, Kayihura had been accused of presiding over a ‘rotten’ administration having been infiltrated by criminals.

Museveni on March 8, likened Kayihura’s 13 years of service to ‘bean weevil.’

The UPDF General is accused of working closely with a neighbouring country Rwanda to dislodge his boss.