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{
    "id": 1522473,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522473/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 249,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kesses, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Julius Rutto",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to support the National Police Service Commission (Amendment) Bill. Clause 12 of the Bill addresses needy issues affecting our officers in line of duty. We are not new to uncertain news that run on our screens every now and even on the social media. Police officers take away their lives or those of innocent people as a point of expression of depression, dissatisfaction or frustration. When all these issues are put together, they draw us back to the knowledge that police officers are human beings like every other person. We all know that we gave ourselves a new Constitution in 2010. However, we are still working on it to ensure that we implement it to the letter. The amendment in this Bill takes us to Article 43 of the Constitution on economic and social rights of Kenyans. As I have said, police officers are Kenyans like everybody else. This Article of the Constitution enumerates a list of rights every Kenyan is entitled to. The first one is the issue of quality healthcare which is not only limited to the aspect of illness and medical attention to ailments, but also includes squarely mental illness. Frustrations are demonstrated by officers where a junior officer opens fire on their colleagues or seniors. As we all know, operations of officers in uniform is a question of orders, instructions and directives. It is a top-down operation. Sometimes instructions are given to people who are already sick. There is no person or quota that is able to evaluate, look at and check the well-being of these people. Sometimes they are given a huge assignment that sounds like a punishment because they have already lost hope in life. It leads to what we are witnessing now. We are losing a lot of officers. Officers kill their families, including innocent children, just to express their frustration. After realising they have done the worst, they take away their lives. We lose a lot."
}