Six arrested for impersonation during police recruitment exercise

Lira, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Six suspects are in police custody for alleged impersonation during the just concluded police probation constable recruitment exercise in the Lango sub-region. During the recruitment exercise, candidates were required to present their original identification and education documents.

They were later subjected to a screening exercise and verification of their documents, physical fitness, oral examination, aptitude tests, and medical examination. Only 162 out of the 191 shortlisted candidates reported for interviews. However, six of the applicants were arrested for impersonation and forgery of documents.

Three of the six came bearing the same names although two of them never applied for the job. Jimmy Patrick Okema, the North Kyoga Police spokesperson explained that it was easy to detect and identify the real candidate who was shortlisted for the job thus leading to the arrest of the others.

Okema who confirmed that the suspects have already recorded statements and their files are being prepared, says the suspects may be pardoned instead of being arraigned in the courts of law.

Fourteen other candidates were disqualified after they failed to produce original copies of their National IDs, despite having confirmation letters from the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). Okema explained that the candidates were shortlisted with the hope that they would acquire the IDs before the recruitment exercise.

By the end of the exercise, two out of the 142 candidates who had passed the physical fitness, oral test, and aptitude test were disqualified on medical grounds, leaving only 140 candidates to progress to the next step- the police training school.

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