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"id": 213992,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Poghisio",
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"speaker": {
"id": 202,
"legal_name": "Samuel Losuron Poghisio",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to also add my voice to that of my colleagues who have spoken before me. I would like to congratulate the Minister for having his whole team here ready to take in the views. I would also like to congratulate my colleagues, who have spoken before me, for their eloquence and also for their contribution that has added some value to the debate. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am mostly concerned about the situation in the rural parts of Kenya. I would like to suggest to the Minister that the places where security is most needed in this country are exactly the places where security is insufficient. Year in, year out, we vote funds for the Minister to do something about that. A security map of the country should reflect really how we distribute security forces. I know that urban areas have been privileged because they have been given more security. However, I think it is about time that security moved outwards to the rural areas. The constituency that I represent, Kacheliba, which is now in a new district, Pokot North, is, definitely, lacking in visible security from the Government. Mr. Speaker, Sir, alongside that, when we recruit security personnel, it should be based on some kind of readiness. How do you employ people and tell them that when they finish training you will provide them with housing? It is part of their recruitment, but when they finish training, they do not have that housing! I hope that the Minister will, in future, peg the recruitment of security officers to availability of accommodation and good, decent accommodation for the security personnel. It should not be a situation where you budget just for a certain number of recruits to go to college and you do not budget for the accompanying privileges which they need thereafter! So, if the Government wants to recruit 1,000 officers, why does it advertise before it makes sure that there are 1,000 housing units or accommodation spaces for those recruits? They need to come home and get into good houses. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I know that the Minister is trying at the moment, but I think that some of the officers still live in very squalid conditions which do not really give the police officers the confidence that they require. The same goes to the Administration Police (AP), and in some cases, the District Officers (DOs) and senior officers in this Ministry who do not have adequate housing. I hope that when we recommend some of these things, the Minister will begin to recruit police officers in a manner that goes with the status of the police so that they can stand out and look decent. The same goes to the issue of officers and the things that they require. This includes being adequately clothed and armed to fight crime. I know many of them are really exposed to danger, especially in those areas where cattle rustling is very rife. The police in those areas are not really well protected. They should be given equipment that suffices so that they can fight that can kind of crime out there. To me, that is something that should be included in the Budget. Mr. Speaker, Sir, most people have spoken about roadblocks and said that they are not good. I find that argument to be a little bit pushy because it depends on the time. Sometimes roadblocks are very good. There must be a season when roadblocks can work, and that is when they are needed. Many times, motorists are carjacked and a lot of them, including those in the public transport sector, get troubled on the way. So, roadblocks have become safety nets. So, let us not do away with things just because we do not like them for now. There comes a season in security when you need them. That is when they should be applied. Especially at night, I find roadblocks to be useful. People can drive freely along our roads. Roadblocks should be rationalised. There should not be roadblocks permanently, but sometimes they serve a purpose. So, we should encourage the judgement of our security forces. 2492 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 12,2006 Mr. Speaker, Sir, sometimes we find that officers are getting more and more, in my view, unfit, physically, such that now they cannot run after criminals any more. I do not know whether there is no more requirement for physical fitness after they have served for sometime. Even for me, as a Member of Parliament, I some time require to walk long distances. So, you kind of need to be physically fit to do your job. I am seeing that those who are bigger are now getting promoted. So, the more senior and bigger one is, the more unfit one is to do the job. The only way you can manage these people is to make sure that they are subjected to physical training, so that they trim up and are able to run. Even when it comes to providing uniforms, you need to make sure that you rationalise. You do not have to take another person's uniform to make up for another person. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am concerned that our policemen in the cities and urban areas are, definitely, shooting to kill. That may be an order. The will take that order any time, but must we be subjected to the sight of dead bodies everyday in our living rooms? Do the police need to prove to anybody that they killed? Are we demanding that we should see the people who have been killed, when they fight with criminals? It looks to me as if every time they kill criminals, they must wait at the scene until the Press arrives. They keep the bodies of the people they have killed until the Press arrives and takes pictures, so that they can prove something. Why do we need to have them to prove something? Mr. Speaker, Sir, even our dead should be handled in a more civilised manner than that. We have seen how it is done in this country. They show us pictures of how they pick up the dead and just throw them onto the trucks and go away. Some decency needs to be taught to our police officers, so that they know how to respect the citizens to the last moment. They way the police handle our dead troubles Kenyans. Our children are seeing. They think that if you become a police officer, you become one just to kill. They need to be shown the other side of the police, which is the warmer side. It is the side that helps children cross the road, that which helps people who are lost, et cetera . Therefore, if possible, the police should use body bags to handle the dead. This business of just showing bodies of people being thrown into trucks does not add value to our lives. We also need to remember that criminals, whoever they are, belong to some people. They have their relatives, parents and families. So, it is good to handle these things, so that our police can begin to respect people as the people respect the police. I am just raising the issue that the Minister is trying to build up a force, but it must be a force that can be respected, and which can then have authority. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there are people who have been given opportunities in the recently created districts. They are District Commissioners (DCs) and District Officers (DOs). Transport for those officers is wanting. In the new districts, housing needs to be prioritised, so that we do not have to be asking Questions about when vehicles will for such-and-such districts be availed. There should be a package that goes with new districts, so that the DC, who is posted there, does not suffer. Pokot North District, where I come from, is new. The DC and the DOs are there. Some of them do not even have housing or vehicles. I hope that the Minister will use this as a priority list for enabling those officers to work. The roads on which these people drive demand that the vehicles that they are given are strong. There may be even a spare vehicle, because they do not have places to repair them there. They have to travel a distance of 300 kilometres to find a place where they can repair them. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}