THE MOST USELESS POLICEMAN AWARDS 2012!

Welcome one and all to this year's addition on "The Most Useless Policeman" Awards. You will see from the pictures that we have 4 nominees for this year's award, some of which you may know. Let me take this time to introduce you to one of the highly tipped contenders which you may not know -  the Masaka Police department!

CHIEF WIGGUM

As many of you will know, about a month ago we were robbed in the middle of the night and had over a thousand pounds worth of stuff stolen as we slept! We weren’t too troubled by our stuff having been teefed, it is just possessions after all and also, as we have travel insurance, we knew we would be able to claim some compensation as long as we managed to get an official police report. A simple matter you may think....

Well, this is Uganda my friends, and perhaps one of the establishments that bypasses all others (EVEN the local immigration office!) in quite unimaginable ineptness, laziness and laughable incompetence, is the Masaka Police department!

LT. FRANK DREBIN

I had never held out any real hope of any proper investigation into this crime, and was vindicated in this opinion when despite bringing various implements that the robbers had used (carefully sealed CSI-stylie by Sarah in plastic cellophane bags) I was told that they weren’t needed. “Will someone be coming to visit the scene of the crime?” I asked. “Perhaps if someone is available,” was the response. Of course no one was, because it seems that the police in Masaka have the tried and tested strategy of solving crimes by sitting on your batty and looking vacant and/or chatting to your friend about the football. Very effective I’m sure. Of course it’s always possible they are in fact solving crimes with the power of their minds. The commander may be a fan of the film “Minority Report” and believe that if you sit there dreaming, the answers will simply come! I, however, remain somewhat dubious and would have preferred to see a bit of hands-on-policing.

OFFICER BARBRADY

Anyway, I digress, as in fact that main thing I was interested in was getting an official police report for insurance purposes. “No problem,” I was told, “we have your statement, give us some time to do our investigations (?!?), and we will let you know when you can come and get the report.”

Two and a half weeks later, having been away with my parents, and still having heard nothing from the police I decided to go and check on the progress of my report. I arrived to find that not only had nothing been done what-so-ever, but that they had also succeeded in losing all my paperwork resulting in a lengthy wait to give my statement all over again.

I was still fairly calm at this point but after being handed over to a CID officer who proceeded to question me about why I hadn’t come sooner and how I had wasted time and that I wasn’t serious, my blood started to simmer ever so slightly.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sir, is it my fault that I have had to sit for hours on 2 separate occasions to give a statement that has been lost by your office, and my fault that I misunderstood the instruction to wait until I got a phone call before coming back, well yes I can see how I’m not serious and how that is all my fault.” Numpty!

THE MASAKA POLICE 

DEPARTMENT

Anyway, that issue negotiated I was assured that now my case had been handed to him I would be getting “The Real Service!”

Let me share with you therefore what the “Real Service” of The Masaka Police entails:

     1.   Being told to come back another day because it’s nearly 4pm and getting a bit late;

     2.   Coming back on that day to spend the first 10 minutes, not working on getting the police report sorted, but rather listening to the tales of woe about how the officer’s car is broken and how his mother is sick in hospital (complete with gruesome photos of her gammy foot on his phone) and would I like to be a good Muzungu and give him some money to help;


     3. Trundling off to the bank to pay the 62,500 shillings government fee for the police report, only to then be told on my return that their computer is broken, so would I be a good chap and go and type it and print it myself. How very reasonable of them to ask me to do their job for them: shall I bring you a cup of tea as well, Sir?!!!

Needless to say I still haven’t received this blinking report, and after another fruitless journey to the police station today the saga could yet continue. Is it worth the few hundred quid I’m likely to get back from our insurance company? Only time will tell....


And with regards to the nominations, well, I think you all know who gets my vote!