Inmates and officers at Kisuku police post in Mukungwe parish, Bukakata Sub-county in Masaka district are sharing a room due to lack of space.
The two parties share one small double-roomed house that acts as an office, prison cell, and officer’s quarter, putting the lives of both inmates and police officers at a great risk.
Joseph Kibira, a resident of Makondo in Bukakata Sub County and a former inmate on drugs-related charges, testifies that the room that acts as a police cell is too small to accommodate more than five suspects.
He says the building dilapidated and shaky, which endangers the lives of inmates that sleep there. Kibira says many inmates are squeezed in the same room with the police officers. He explained that the house is poorly ventilated, and accumulates a lot of unbearable heat in the day.
Corporal Robert Mapande, the officer in charge of Kisuku police post, says the house in which this police post is accommodated was given to them by a well-wisher who built it years back without putting into consideration police cell standards. He adds that the high criminal rate in the area leads to congestion in the small cell especially in the evening hours.
Mapande says that they lack of transport facilities to ferry some of the inmates to bigger cells when their numbers increase. He adds that they rarely access district police vehicles, forcing them to walk to as they relocate suspects.
He noted that he forwarded a request to the Masaka District Police Commander to consider building for them a better police facility but the authorities there have not helped them for the past one and a half years.
Edie Sserunjogi, the Masaka DPC declined to comment on the sorry state of his juniors in Kisuku police post, saying he was in a meeting and would comment later.
