A senior Police officer has been arrested for allegedly receiving a bribe of Shs2m from degraders of the wetlands and protected areas around Kajjansi in Wakiso District.
The State House Anticorruption Unit on Tuesday afternoon arrested the Assistant Inspector of Police (AIP) Elly Naserenga from Nateete Police Station.
Detectives from the State House Unit arrested Naserenga, the officer in charge of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) upon a tip after he allegedly received the bribe from one of the degraders of the natural resource.
A source privy to the details of the arrest revealed that Naserenga jointly with other individuals have been receiving bribes to allow environment degraders to backfill the wetlands leading to floods on Entebbe Express highway and other areas.
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“This policeman working with brokers has been protecting degraders instead of arresting them to destroy the wetlands,” Mariam Natasha confirmed in a phone interview that Naserenga is being accussed of extortion and bribery.
“He (Naserenga) has been confiscating peoples’ vehicles and other properties and releasing them upon them paying him a bribe,” Natasha said in an interview.
She could not divulge the details saying that the detectives were still handling the initial processes of searching and recording statements.
The arrest followed a complaint in which a one John Lule and other drivers and builders in Ggaba, Kansanga, Kajjansi, Busabala, Entebbe, Nateete, Kyengera, Ssisa, Nakawuka sought assistant from the State House Unit to prevail over ‘the policemen of NEMA who are frustrating and robbing us every day.’
In their complaint dated July 17, 2026, they accuse NEMA officers attached to Kajjansi and Nateete offices of detaining people and impounding their vehicles illegally.
“That I am a victim of compromised and inaction of the police incompetence,” Lule stated while accusing the police officers and NEMA officers of arresting and threatening him on July 14, 2026.
“That very time an officer came in and introduced himself as Afande Rashid Kiggwe and said that he is a deputy to Naserenga. After that introduction, he and Naserenga Elly demanded that I should pay five million Uganda shillings, if not, they were going to take me to NEMA headquarters or take me to court,” reads the complaint.
Lule wrote that upon being detained for five hours, he was given bond and they asked him to call someone to sign as surety on top of ordering him to return the next day with Shs5,000,000.
According to the complaint, when he returned the following day to Nateete Police, Lule found Naserenga, Rashid Kiggwe and other police officers and they warned him that if he did not have the money, they were going take him to Luzira prison which scared him and he promised to look for the money.
Lule divulged that on July 16, he called Naserenga who asked him to find them at Kajjansi Police. Upon reaching there, he pleaded with the team and he was told to pay Shs2m or be taken to Luzira Prison.
The arrest comes after Israel Ochwo, the deputy commandant of the Anti-Corruption Unit warned that they have increased efforts to fight corruption in the country.
While appearing on NBS Television, Israel Ochwo said that they are ready to cooperate with all government agencies to leave no stone unturned in the fight against the corrupt.
