The DPP

(Q)How is the Directorate today compared to what it was 10 years ago?
(A)Well, we have improved a lot since 1995. The 1995 Constitution made the DPP an autonomous Institution. It ceased existing as a mere department under the Ministry of Justice. The institution thus became independent in its handling of cases and was also made self-accounting.

(Q)How did this status strengthen DPP as an Institution?
(A)We started running our affairs independently. We first identified key areas that would lead to improvement if properly managed.

(Q)Which areas were these?
(A)To begin with, in terms of coverage, DPP was not represented in many parts of the country. At the time, we only had offices and operated in about 16 districts. We thus set out to expand our area of coverage, and from 16 districts, we are now represented in 48 districts. In the next 3 years, we shall be in every district that existed before June 2005. Secondly, up to 1998 the Directorate owned no single office building in the country. Today, the Directorate has constructed it's own office buildings in Gulu, Masaka, Jinja, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Nakawa, Soroti, Mbale, Arua, Kabale, Masindi, Kabale, Mukono, Lira, Tororo and Bushenyi. Last financial year, we began construction in Moroto and Luwero. Next financial year we shall begin construction in Nebbi and Kasese. This construction of offices for the Directorate shall continue with two or three offices every financial year. We intend to construct an office block for our headquarters in the long run.

(Q)What are the challenges (if any) associated with the expansion of the Directorate?
(A)The expansion has necessitated increasing the numbers of personnel to manage the prosecution service throughout the country. We needed personnel to take over from police, which prior to 1995 used to do much of the prosecution work. To achieve this, we designed a course with the Law Development Centre, to train personnel (State Prosecutors) to prosecute in Magistrate Courts. We have since trained 176 State Prosecutors and increased the number of Lawyers from the 23 we had by 1995, to over 97 Lawyers currently recruited and deployed. We hope to recruit about 30 Lawyers per year for the next three years. We believe these numbers will be capable of handling the ever-increasing volume of work, and to eventually man all courts in the country. With the increasing public confidence in the criminal justice system, the volume of work has been on the increase.

(Q)How equipped is this workforce when it comes to offering Quality Prosecution Service to the public?
(A)Apart from increasing just the numbers, we are set to improve the quality of prosecutors by training the prosecutors we have. We have Induction Courses for our new staff i.e. both State Prosecutors, State Attorneys and administration staff. In addition, the Directorate organises various courses from time to time for all our staff. We are also aiming at Specialisation by some of our lawyers in certain specific fields in the long run. To achieve this, we have so far established the following specialised units i.e.

• Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance.
• Anti-Money Laundering Corruption and Narcotics.
• The Anti-Fraud Unit as well as units in charge of Juveniles, Gender, Appeals and Research.

Furthermore, as far as the training of our staff is concerned, we have established relations with Foreign national prosecution institutions who have accepted our prosecutors to be attached to their agencies to study their working practices and practically go to court; learn from them so as to help improve our methods and procedures. These partners include the Crown Prosecution Service and Serious fraud office of UK, and the National Prosecution Authority of the Republic of South Africa. We are also proposing attachments to other countries and international agencies engaged in criminal law.

In addition, our organisation belongs to the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) to which I am a member of the Executive Committee. Through this organisation and its agencies throughout the world, we are kept informed about new challenges in the field of criminal prosecution, which we take up and learn from.

(Q)Aside from Expansion, Recruitment or personnel and training, how else has the Directorate changed from the way it was in 1195?
(A)Another area of improvement is information technology. We have started on computerisation of our operations in the Directorate, which has been quite successful to an extent that we now have our headquarters computerised, and our offices at Buganda road, Jinja, Nakawa, Gulu, Fort Portal, Makindye and Mbale partially computerised. We however still need to improve and update this process and expand to other areas where we have built offices.

(Q)What are the current problems (if any) facing the Directorate presently?
(A)The running of offices and expanding at a fast rate has cost implications. The reality is that we are under-funded. The main problem we are facing is the poor remuneration to our staff especially our lawyers, who having undertaken such extensive and expensive training. They go to court everyday, and thus acqure expertise and turn out to be good lawyers in a short time. They therefore become targets for other employers who easily offer them higher pay. As a result, we are losing a lot of our lawyers and to a less extent the other staff. The lawyers compare themselves to their colleagues in private practice besides having a ready market to take them on in the private sector. We train them and give them the expertise and then fail to retain them. We are a training ground for others.

(Q)How is this problem being handled?
(A)We have appealed to Government and continue to do so, so that a system is put in place to retain these lawyers, in whom we have invested heavily. They are the biggest assets of the Directorate whom we should not lose. Proper remuneration will greatly improve our performance.

(Q)Are you satisfied with the way cases have been handled?
(A)I think we have improved greatly in terms of prosecution of cases. Our conviction rate has grown in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and the High Court. Although our data in the Magistrates Courts is not yet accurate for assessment, we are doing a lot better than before. Furthermore, the prisons statistics show that the ratio of convicted prisoners though still lower than that of remand prisoners, is steadily improving. We have also reduced the period prisoners spent on remand and the success for all this is a result of increased co-operation, communication, and improved performance by all the institutions in the Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) to which we are very active participants. We are also grateful to our development partners, The Netherlands Government, The South African Prosecution Authority, The British Government and others who have given us support in our efforts to improve.

(Q)There have been accusations of corruption against the Directorate. What is the position?
(A)We have unreservedly fought corruption. We have a zero tolerance policy against corruption. We handle all cases of corruption from the public, and even fight corruption among our own staff. We are ready to fight corruption and we shall succeed. We are members of the Anti-Corruption Forum chaired by the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity, comprising of police, prisons, the Judiciary, Public Service, the IGG, URA, the Auditor General, and other institutions. We have participated in formulating legislation on corruption in relation to the IGG, Public Procurement and other areas. We have further participated in workshops organised by other institutions. For complaints in respect of our own staff, we have a complaints desk at the headquarters, which attends to people's complaints. Whether in respect to our own staff at headquarters or upcountry. We have complaints boxes at our other stations. We have disciplined and dismissed some of our staff, even prosecuted some, and this we shall continue to do where there is sufficient evidence.

(Q)What is your message as we wind up?
(A)We are very happy where we have been successful. We do admit our mistakes where we may have made any, and most importantly we learn from both our successes and our mistakes to provide better prosecution services for the population of Uganda. Finally, I am very grateful to our staff who have been very hardworking and dedicated. Our success is owed to our staff, who have managed to keep working for one goal of building an efficient Institution. Success is due to the efforts of everybody, and none of us alone could have achieved so much. I congratulate everybody and say lets continue the hard but professionally rewarding struggle.