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"id": 215024,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Arungah",
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"speaker": {
"id": 292,
"legal_name": "Julius Odenyo Arungah",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the concept of community policing is also a good one, but these are young people who put their lives on the line in trying to provide security to the villagers. I would, therefore, urge the Minister to look at ways, at least, of remunerating these people for the services that they render to the people. With regard to housing, I think that the security forces are completely disadvantaged. I appreciate the fact that the Minister, since the last three years, has been doing something. There have been improvements going on. For instance, he has spent Kshs1.8 billion, and he is going to spend another Kshs2.1 billion towards the improvement of the force's housing. This should be commended although we have a long way to go. This is because to have a situation where a married policeman shares a house with a bachelor is neither fair nor human. These are some of the things that are causing disillusionment in our forces and the Minister needs to take urgent measure to address them, like he has, indeed, told us. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the first responsibility which is crucial for any Government is to provide security to its citizen. I will leave it to the Minister to decide how well he has done. However, I understand that there is a big insecurity problem in the country and something needs to be done very urgently to address this issue of security. I agree with the Minister when he says that security is everybody's responsibility. However, as I speak to you now, there are three sons of a family in Khwisero - the family of Ayuku - who are right now lying in agony in bed. Last night, their home was invaded and they were cut into pieces. It is a miracle that they did not die. They are lying in hospital. The police were told, but they could not respond because the only vehicle that they had been given was commandeered to another police station. When I asked this Question, I think three months ago, I was told that something was being done, but to-date, nothing has happened. If the police had a vehicle, maybe, they would have been there faster and there would have been a difference. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of security is a very crucial one because whereas we want to acknowledge that we are responsible in some ways, when I look at some of the victims, for example, the people I am talking about, I wonder what they could have done to avoid the unfortunate incident that befell them. I look at the various victims of Mungiki in this town and I wonder what they would have done differently. So, instead of the Minister saying that it is everyone's responsibility, he should acknowledge that the Government needs to do more to assure its citizens of security because without it, there can be no form of economic development as has been stated previously. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say something about a unit at the Office of the President which they call Disaster and Emergency Response Unit. There are two incidents which I witnessed at a personal level. There was a time when somebody in Khwisero drowned in River Yala. More recently, somebody drowned in a quarry in Nairobi. It took the police or the security forces, on average, three days to actually come and remove the bodies from River Yala and the quarry. We know that divers are based in Mombasa. I do not see why the Minister, for example, cannot arrange to have trained divers stationed in Nairobi so that in cases of emergency like those ones I have mentioned, they can respond faster. We do not have to wait for three days for somebody to come from Mombasa, which is only one hour away. In both cases, the divers had to be flown from Mombasa and it took them about half-an-hour to get here."
}