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"id": 214003,
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"speaker_name": "Maj. Sugow",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Water and Irrigation",
"speaker": {
"id": 142,
"legal_name": "Aden Ahmed Sugow",
"slug": "aden-sugow"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this important Motion. I would like to congratulate the Minister for bringing it here, and for doing a good job, amidst a lot of blames here and there in the country, as far as security is concerned. A lot of debate has taken place in this House, today, with regard to our police officers. I would like to congratulate the Minister for planning to increase the number of police officers. I feel what we need to do here, today, is to concentrate more on quality rather than quantity. We need to look into having more better trained officers than more ill-trained men in our State. It is very important to invest in modern equipment and protection gear for our police officers. We need to give them modern training in line with the ever evolving urban crime in this country. Most of our officers are ill-equipped. They do not have sufficient transport and protection. Therefore, they always feel threatened and trigger-happy because they want to protect themselves from criminals who would not give them a chance. Today, quite a number of hon. Members raised concern about police officers killing suspects before they are taken to court. While I understand the law with regard to that, we are in a dilemma here because many of our innocent officers, who are on their routine duties and very unsuspecting, are shot down on a daily basis. I do not to see why a criminal's life should be better than a police officer's life. We invest, as Kenyans, a lot of money in training the men and women in blue. They have their families and they are very valuable to us. When we lose one of them, it is not only his family or his friends who lose. It is the whole nation. When a criminal takes the law into his own hands, he is prepared to die. A police officer goes out there with the hope of arresting the criminal. It is, therefore very difficult to send a police officer to an area where his colleagues died the other day and expect him to shoot to injure somebody whom he, clearly, knows is armed. This is a dilemma. I believe that we need to actually tackle the inherent societal problems in our country in order to contain crime. Quite a number of security posts in this country are either not manned or have no facilities. The Ministry is overwhelmed to put up the facilities and at the same time, send police officers to those areas. I would like to challenge my colleagues to assist the Minister by putting up these physical facilities through the CDF. I believe that security is the responsibility of everybody and there is no development that can take place without security. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) is a development fund. If you cannot achieve that development, then what are you waiting for? However, I urge the Ministry as well to man some of these facilities that have been put in place by some of us. A case in point is that I have put up five administration police posts in my 2500 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 12,2006 constituency. However, three out of these five, have not been manned for one-and-a-half years. Others have not been manned two years down the line. So, some of us get discouraged when we put up these facilities, knowing very well that the men who were there have been going there on patrol basis every now and then because of lack of these facilities. Now, despite putting up these facilities, there are no men, and then we wonder why we put them up in the first place. So, I urge the Minister to post staff and bring equipment to these facilities that have been put in place. We can cost-share and support the Ministry in ensuring that there is security in our rural areas, so that development can take place. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to also mention something about community policing. This is a very noble idea. It is working in many areas, but it has hiccups. I would like the Minister and the Commissioner of Police to look into it and refine it. Like any other new policy or initiative, it has its own teething problems. Sometimes some of those people who have been recruited by the police are sort of on a mission of vendetta in the communities in which they serve. It is very important that we do proper background checks on the individuals that we take on in terms of co-operation in the community policing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are areas in this country inhabited by refugees. There are camps, particularly in North Eastern Province and in my constituency, for that matter. A lot of insecurity problems have emanated out of hosting of these refugees. Today, many of the inhabitants in these areas are suffering as a result of measures put in place to contain insecurity or as a matter of probably national security. The Minister knows very well the problems that we have been facing from these camps. However, some of the measures that have been put in place have made the host communities in those areas and who have been there before the refugees and who are Kenyans, suffer. I urge the Minister to review some of those measures that have been put in place. We can consult to be able to inform him further on some of those measures and the problems they are creating. Quite a number of our people have been impoverished as a result of these measures because of lack of transport in those areas. It is like putting some sort of embargo on some of the divisions and locations because of containment or restrictions of movement for the refugees. With those few remarks, I support."
}