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"id": 213110,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/213110/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojaamong",
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"speaker": {
"id": 196,
"legal_name": "Sospeter Odeke Ojaamongson",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this Motion on the Floor of the House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Motion tends to paint police officers as being very miserable in their duties. Indeed, it is a result of the misery caused by the escalating cost of living that has made them compromise on their official duties. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will touch on the issue of housing for police officers in Amagoro Constituency. If you went to our major town; Malaba, all the parcel of land that was meant for the construction of police houses was grabbed by individuals. However, the Government is doing very little to repossess it. Malaba Police Post which houses the station and officers, has been confined to a very small area. In the constituency, if you went to the far end, for lack of anywhere to go, police officers have taken over two classrooms from Moding' Secondary School. One is used for keeping armoury and the other is shared by police officers. They sleep in it. This paints a very bad picture of the housing situation within the police force. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will join other hon. Members to request the Minister in charge to put more effort to ensure that police officers are housed properly, so that their morale is boosted. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is because police officers lack morale that even the Commissioner of Police is not secure. He is very unsafe. The Minister of State for Administration and National Security is not safe either. That is the reason he has so many chase cars escorting him all over. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the Commissioner of Police and police officers are seeking protection, where will civilians get protection that is supposed to be provided by police officers? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the situation of police officers being demoralised is so bad. If you travel from Busia to Kisumu, police officers are now competing to erect roadblocks, so that they can arrest any matatu, anybody caring bhang or little chang'aa, so as to extort them in order to increase their earnings. This is very unfortunate and the Government has to do something to increase their salaries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when it comes to recruitment of police officers, the Ministry has been very notorious. You will find that in the district I come from, ten or so people, can be picked for recruitment. The youths then run around the field, sure that they have been picked. However, when they go for training, they are all referred back and replaced by people, not from Teso District, but from other parts of this country. There are also reports that indicate that very prominent politicians, Ministers, wives of Ministers and the President take the role of recruiting police officers from nowhere, without going through the normal recruitment process. Those are the people who replace those who have been genuinely recruited. If this Government needs to survive, it has to be very transparent. We know those people. When they are recruited, they come back and tell us. So, it impacts very negatively on this Government. We want transparency. Every community should be given its fair share, so that it can feel it is in the same country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Mr. Khamisi has just been talking about police uniforms. If you look very closely at the kind of uniforms that are supplied to those police officers, starting from shoes, socks, long trousers, shirts, caps and belts, you will see that they are of sub- standard quality. You cannot imagine what the Government is giving them! But if you look at the July 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2581 cost that has been incurred in buying those things, it is very high. The people who supply equipment and uniforms to our police officers and other armed personnel--- I think those should be people of good reputation and whose firms should be reputable enough to supply quality things. Now that even plastic bags have been banned--- Our police officers have been putting on plastic belts. I do not know how---"
}