The callers raised complaints ranging from sim-card registration, mobile money service hiccups, failure to load airtime and mysterious depletion of data bundles. Only 294 calls were valid and acted upon by the department.
This is far below the capacity of the police emergency, which has the ability to handle at least 1,000 cases monthly. An officer in the communication department, on condition of anonymity said that most of the telecom clients who call the police emergency numbers are from northern and eastern Uganda.
The calls majorly come through the 112 emergency number and only a few come through 999.
“It seems they think that number is for MTN, Airtel or UTL customer service. We just keep telling them that its a police number they have called and advise them to call other numbers,” the officer said.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga confirmed the high numbers of invalid emergency calls meant for telecom companies but said there is an improvement.
Out of the 294 valid emergency calls handled, 20 were for fatal accidents, 28 serious but not fatal accidents, 20 minor accidents, 31 mob action, 37 fire out breaks and 13 cases of house break-ins among others.