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{
    "id": 1522399,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522399/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 175,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Beatrice Elachi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "As we talk about mental health today, the police force is the most affected. I know they have challenges with their salaries. They are salaried civil servants who I know struggle with the same issues that affect the teachers. If I may remember, Margaret Kobia started a very good programme post-COVID, to ensure that all civil servants have a place they can go to, a wellness unit, when they are stressed. She is the one who started the unit. I am hoping the unit is still functional in the civil service. It was supposed to help every civil servant who has challenges and who feels stressed to talk to someone just to receive counselling. That is what the police also need. The police encounter many other challenges. They take care of us, but even providing them with uniforms and boots is a challenge. I wonder whether they have an insurance cover for themselves and their families. You wonder whether we appreciate the work they do. It is a very sad scenario. One of the things that we need to push for in this amendment Bill is to ensure that we improve the working environment for all police officers. I want to thank Mr Gilbert Masengeli, the Deputy Inspector-General of the Police (DIG). When he was serving as the acting Inspector-General of the Police, he tried to encourage promotions in the police ranks. You would see police officers getting excited and saying that they wished to serve. The current IG, Mr Douglas Kanja, has also continued the process. They are trying to see how to promote officers who came in 10 or 15 years ago and have never been promoted. I encourage them to continue doing that. We need to assist with the welfare of the police. I will give you an example. The officers who man the State House gate are from the General Service Unit. They have challenges. I plead with the State House Comptroller to consider the challenges they are facing. Many young children and students live in State House and they do not know the other side of life because their fathers are officers of the Government. However, those children can also receive bursaries. They are in my constituency and I feel they deserve to get bursaries, and to benefit from the President’s Award. The officers should also receive allowances for nights spent away from their duty stations. Many officers who work in that sector find it very difficult to get allowances for nights spent away from their duty stations. So, if we want the civil service to work hard for a better Kenya, we must incentivise workers and mitigate some of the factors that result in stress. Hon. Peter Masara also talked about the oversight authorities such as the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC). Why not establish courts martial for some of those officers like in the military? While in the course of duty, they sometimes get caught up in exchanges of fire while dealing with dangerous criminals. We should realise that they go through a lot of stress. When they find themselves in such situations where there are exchanges of fire with dangerous criminals and they are called to appear before the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), they should be given an opportunity to explain themselves. Some of those officers once protected our lives, but they lose their jobs because they killed someone in the course of duty. They may not get their jobs back after an appeal process. If they have to go home, let them do so with dignity after having explained their side of the story as per Article 50 of the Constitution. Some police officers are very stressed. After they are trained, they are usually first deployed to volatile areas like the borders of Mandera or Tana River where terrorist attacks are prevalent. We lost very young officers some years ago who had just come out of training and were sent to Tana River. They were all killed by terrorists. Others have stayed in those areas The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}