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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the promulgation of the new Constitution on 27th August, 2010 gave momentum for reforms in the Police Force and brought fundamental changes in both the structure and command of the Police Service. It established the Kenya Police and the Administrative Police Service as two distinct national police services under the unified command of an Inspector General. The two services are each placed under the command of a Deputy Inspector General with distinct roles and responsibilities. The Constitution demands the highest standards of professionalism, transparency, accountability and discipline amongst the police. It also demands for compliance with the constitutional standards of human rights and fundamental freedoms to foster and promote a relationship with the broader society. The sum total of these provisions has redefined overall policing architecture in the country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, pursuant to the Government’s commitment to implement comprehensive police reforms, His Excellency the President appointed a National Taskforce on the Police Reforms to examine the institutional, policy, legislation and operational framework in which the Kenya Police and Administration Police operated and make recommendations for comprehensive reforms to transform the two services into professional and accountable security agencies that can effectively and efficiently deliver on their mandate. The Taskforce made its report in October, 2009, which was approved by the Government. The recommendation of the Taskforce on the police reforms – also known as the Ransley Report – was clustered into four broad reform pillars. I shall not delve into the details of this matter, but I shall give the names and titles of these pillars that were identified. One is Legislative Policy and Institutional Reforms. The aim here was to provide a policy and legislative framework that provides a legal basis for the ongoing reform initiatives. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the second pillar was Reforms on Police Accountability. Again, the objective here was to create a mechanism to hold the police accountable to the public and Parliament for their actions while discharging their policing duties and for the promotion of fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens contemplated in the Constitution of Kenya in respect of the policing. The third pillar is the Reforms on the Police Professionalism. Here, the objective is to build high professional standards and training that will enable the police to meet standards that embrace best practices in modern policing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the final, which is the fourth pillar, is about administrative and operation reforms. Again, the objective of the reforms under this pillar is to improve the operational capacity of the police and address the challenges of housing, modernizing communication infrastructure and providing adequate vehicles, plant and equipment that are critical to the provisions of policing services to the public. The pillar also deals with tooling and kitting issues of the police. Given the recommendations that we got from the Ransley Report, and which were fully accepted by the Government, it was important to ensure that there would be a departure from the past where taskforces would be tasked to carry out a survey of specific issues and make recommendations. The Report would then be accepted. However, unfortunately, the Report would be shelved - except for a few - and nothing would be done. It is for that reason that my Ministry, myself and all my Assistant Ministers felt that we needed to put into place an implementation committee that would work full time, in consultation with me, as the Minister, along with Members of the Ministry, so as to ensure that, indeed, implementation would move unimpeded. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, because it was important that the implementation committee should be appointed at a much higher level, I, myself, made a recommendation to His Excellency the President, so that he may accept to appoint the implementation committee. I am very happy to inform this House that on 18th January, 2010, the Implementation Committee of the Police Reforms was set up by the President. It was given the mandate to coordinate and steer the implementation of comprehensive policy reforms. The committee was also given the opportunity to move all over the country and meet several stakeholders. That was extremely important. The Committee on Implementation of Police Reforms has made very substantive achievements, first of all, on matters relating to the police training curriculum. I am happy to inform this House that the curriculums in the two important training colleges, one for the Administration Police in Embakasi and the Kenya Police Training College in Kiganjo have been reviewed. Much more important, issues to do with human rights and democratic norms have fully been factored into that, among other things. The other achievement by the implementation committee is the manner in which recruitment is carried out in the police. On that score, I am sure hon. Members will recall that when the police decided to carry out recruitment this year, it was devolved right to the district level. There was also a demand on the minimum qualifications which was a C. It was also recognized that, in the areas which had been marginalized for a long time in matters of education, where no candidate met the minimum qualification of a C, the next grade slightly lower was accepted. That was more important because the police service needs to reflect the entire nation. Again, that was done under the supervision of the Police Reforms Implementation Committee. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I should also admit, and actually inform this House that, again, the Implementation Committee looked into the manner in which the police carries out its training. For this reason, several training programs have been undertaken with an aim to orient the police to the on-going police reforms and equip serving police officers with skills and competencies in the community policing, command and leadership, strategic and change management. The police have initiated partnership programs with public universities to upgrade their skills and competencies in policing science. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, sir, if a major police reform is to be successful, it is important to sensitize serving police officers on the need to have reforms. It is important to impart into them that the whole aim of carrying out reform is not really to punish or penalize the police officers. If anything, it is to enhance their capacity to be able to do their jobs better. That is the aim. It is not only to expand their knowledge, but even much more important in the reform, to ensure that they have decent housing, proper training and to ensure, at the same time, their salaries are reviewed accordingly. That is in light of the fact that police officers are on duty 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. I will come back to that when I go to the Bill relating to the creation of the Police Service Commission. Therefore, it was important to divorce police officers from being under the Public Service Commission. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another very important thing that has been set up even before this law has come into effect is the Code of Conduct on the part of the police. A Code of Conduct for the police has actually been developed and is being implemented by the police with an aim of guiding the police officers on expected behavior and decorum in the course of discharging their policing duties. I would like to say here that, that entails the changing of the culture of the police because, as we very well know, we have come a long way from a time when the police was a tool of the colonial government to suppress the public. That has continued for a fairly long time. The whole aim of the reforms is to change the culture of the police, so that a policeman becomes a friend of the people so that they are in a position to assist the police with the necessary information when it comes to the enforcement of the law. At the same time, it was also important to ensure that there was an internal police accountability unit. Again, a framework for the establishment of a new internal accountability unit for both police services has been developed and the roll out is also underway. That unit will be based outside the mainstream of the police facilities for ease of access by members of the public. That unit will directly be under the Inspector-General and will be dealing with internal police complaints. As a result of all the deliberations that I have talked about, first of all, there was the setting up of the Ransley Task Force. It made recommendations and went all over the country receiving views from a cross section of stakeholders. It came up with recommendations and ensured that those recommendations are implemented. It saw the need to appoint a police service implementation committee which has continued to do its own work, taking into account what has also been stated in the Constitution."
}