CID needs UGX 40Bn to investigate sex, economic crimes annually

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Criminal Investigations Department-CID needs more than 40 billion shillings to investigate sex-related and economic crimes.

The CID director Grace Akullo has consistently cited insufficient budget as one of the major factors hampering daily operations of the directorate.

According to the latest crime report, inadequate funding, lack of manpower and other factors contributed to enormous case backlog faced by CID.

Meagre funding to the CID is said to be one of the reasons why only 34 percent of the 215,224 cases reported to police last year were taken to court. Senior detectives who preferred anonymity note that economic, sex and murder crimes need more than the total budget of CID every financial year.

CID was allocated 49 billion shillings in the 2020/2021 financial year while 48 billion shillings was given to the directorate in the previous economic year. A senior detective said that CID’s annual budget can be fully consumed by economic and sex offences.

“When we talk of insufficient funding, we look at the cost of investigations for capital offences such as murders, economic and sex offences. For instance, last year alone, we had 15,706 victims of sex-related crimes. Examining victims and conducting investigations for all the victims would cost not less than 25 billion shillings,” a senior detective said.

Detectives said an average cost of investigating a defilement or economic case is 1.5 million shillings. However, the costs double when the case is aggravated defilement, murder or corruption cases that include DNA examinations, forensic analysis, handwriting study and electronic transactions.

“Each murder case costs a minimum of 2 million shillings. Investigating murder involves cordoning the scene, examining exhibits such as soil, clothes, blood samples, and cartridges in case of gun violence. Murders involving the use of a gun or poison are very expensive,” a detective said.

Last year, CID recorded 4,718 murders of which 181 were by shooting, seventy-one by poisoning and 360 were a result of aggravated domestic violence. Investigators say murders by shooting needed more than 500 million shillings, cases of death by poisoning needed about 200 million shillings while aggravated domestic murders needed more than 1 billion shillings.

“It is impossible to investigate all these cases to conclusion in a single year. The money and personnel needed could consume more than half of the total budget for the police force. Take an example of 10,489 cases of last year needed about 15 billion shillings while rape cases needed at least 2 billion shillings. Investigations need time, money and manpower,” a senior investigator said.

CID indicates that tracking of suspects in murder, sex and economic crimes is also costly. AIGP Akullo indicates that in one year, CID spent 96.8 million shillings on tracking criminals and victims involved in different crimes. Costs were incurred through obtaining of call data records from telecommunications companies.

“The little or no financial resources to carry out CID work at all levels, sometimes[makes] the complainants offer to fund their cases leading to lots of complaints against the CID, in particular, and Uganda Police in general,” AIGP Akullo indicates.

To investigate sex offences for 2018 and 2017, CID needed 23 billion shillings and 22.4 billion shillings respectively. In the same period, 46 billion shillings would have been spent on investigating economic crimes.

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