Some elements at Police HQ sell fuel to the public - Witness account

As fuel prices soar towards the shs7000 mark, some elements at the Police Headquarters at Naguru are allegedly selling fuel to the public without a care who might be seeing.

According to reports, the fuel is delivered in small, five-litre jerry cans from kiosks inside the premises of the Police Headquarters to cars parked on the roadside and poured into the tanks before payment is made.

While it is not clear how much fuel is sold for, it is highly conceivable that this fuel is sold at a bargain to people that are grappling with the current dizzying fuel prices. The black market business allegedly takes place around the Police residential area near Nakawa Market, far away from seat of Police leadership up the hill.

This editor has witnessed these illicit transactions on several occasions (more than five), and when it happens, it is diesel that is changing hands, and commuter taxis are the more frequent customers.

The prospective buyers stop near Nakawa market on Katalima road like they are waiting for or dropping off passengers. They signal to a nearby kiosk inside police premises and man rushes over with a jerrycan full of greenish-yellow liquid that they proceed to pour in the tank before currency notes are slid into their hands, and off they go back with an empty jerrycan.

When a government body that is supposed to fight crime and disorderliness seems to be out of order and involved in petty crimes themselves, it is hard to know how to react except, maybe, to call them out. But we are also not lost on the fact that police officers are payed very poorly and forced to live in dangerous slums that their barracks have become.