Public address system owners who had become a necessity at various rallies are the number one culprits, those printing posters and t-shirts have not been spared either as well as those hiring out vehicles to transport candidates' supporters.
Another bunch of those rendered jobless are the Special Police Constables (SPCs) and the crime preventers who were recruited specifically for the general elections. Late in the year 2010, the government of Uganda made a decision to identify and train crime preventers and information was passed onto the village authorities. The village authorities submitted 10 names of volunteers who were trained.
A total of 200,000 crime preventers were trained countrywide, 18,000 of them were later recruited as Special Police Constables (SPCs). Last week, several news agencies quoted that the 18,000 SPCs recruited late last year to help in election policing had camped at various police stations and Electoral Commission (EC) offices countrywide for demanding payment of their salaries. The SPCs are demanding Shs350,000 ($152) each from the police and EC which they claim were supposed to be paid after the local government elections. In total, they are demanding Shs6.3 billion ($2.7m). They have threatened to keep the police uniforms they were given until they are paid. In the Capital Kampala, some of them demonstrated at various Police Stations in the outskirts of the city, while others made their plight known in the Central Business District.
Ms Kabakumba Masiko, the Minister of Information and National Guidance clarified that the SPCs were contracted for a period of one month from February 17 to March 17 2011 and the Uganda Police will pay all their allowances as they are discharged. She added that they can continue with their major role of crime prevention and should work closely with the local Authorities back home.
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