South Sudan police eyeing reforms amid challenges

South Sudan police said on Friday it will embark on reforms to help tackle long existing challenges hindering delivery of service in the country. Brigadier Daniel Justine Buolo, a police spokesman, said that the 7th police annual conference underway in ......

South Sudan police said on Friday it will embark on reforms to help tackle long existing challenges hindering delivery of service in the country.

Brigadier Daniel Justine Buolo, a police spokesman, said that the 7th police annual conference underway in Juba seeks to review general police work in terms of plans, challenges and implementation of resolutions of the past police conferences.

Buolo said the top police leadership will strategize their work and share challenges and solutions.

“Some states have few police officers, infrastructure, they don’t have headquarters and police stations. All these will be planned,” he told Xinhua in Juba, adding that they seek to recruit more officers to supplement the over 50,000 current force.

The South Sudan police is dogged by existence of ghosts on its payroll and the leadership plans to conduct head count at all police units in the country.

“Due to the fact that the pension act is not yet out we have still people who are of old age that are still being paid and then the deceased are still also being paid because they have not been paid their pension. We want to assess the situation,” Buolo said.

He disclosed that they will weed out the ageing officers to accommodate fresh recruits below 30 years of age.

South Sudan since outbreak of conflict in December 2013, faces insecurity as armed robberies and theft have been high mainly targeting humanitarian organizations and businesses in the capital and far flung areas which are cut off by poor infrastructure. Enditem