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"content": "should allow all the National Intelligence Service (NIS) officers to have those arresting powers. When it comes to matters of national security, we know that we are under threat. We have the Al Shabaab and other criminals. You do not expect an NIS officer to keep on tracking a drug trafficker and he is not armed. We know that very many people lose their lives when they try to spy on drug traffickers. If these people cannot arrest and are not even armed, they will not have any business following you around, because before they report to the police, you will have disappeared. If you turn against them, they are not armed. So, this Bill should empower them. They should have those guns and the arresting powers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when it comes to the Director-General (DG), he should be an appointee of the President, but should not be brought here for vetting. The minute we bring his or her name to Parliament, if he or she does not belong to the political party that has the majority in this House, they will not approve that name. That means that the DG will only be acting for that political party, and not for the interest of Kenya. If a President takes over power and there is a DG, and he thinks that he cannot work with him, he should not sack him. We should give him powers to redeploy him to another section. This is because it does not mean that if I cannot work with the President, then I am doomed. I should be given other duties instead of sacking me. So, we should depoliticize the work of the DG. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill is good because it also gives powers to those officers who misuse their powers. If you misuse the powers in what you do, there are provisions for actions that can be taken against you. So, it safeguards the offences. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is a good Bill because it has also the division of services. If we have an Intelligence Service that we trust, then we should not have other intelligence services apart from the Military, which is somehow unique. But all the other people should rely on that intelligence from that Service. Otherwise, we should not duplicate intelligence from all other powers. Also, the Director-General (DG) should be protected. He should always have that free hand of giving whatever information to the President and to the country so that we do not have an intelligence service that is given only to the President and not the Commissioner of Police. They need to work together and harmoniously. With regard to the scheme of service, their salaries should be reviewed by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission. They are not any special. When it comes to their budget, we need to agree that it should be a one line budget. What they do is secret and so they cannot tell us that they use this money for that. We should give them a leeway by giving them a budget, but always monitor it. We need to know how much we are giving them and monitor it. We should, however, not go ahead to ask them what they did with the money. They should be accountable, maybe, to the Accounting Officer in the Office of the President where they actually report. Otherwise we cannot have them being investigated by a parliamentary committee on what they do. We know that even if we swore the Secrecy Oath, we do not keep secrets. We are actually a security threat ourselves. We will come here and say what they did with the money. So, they should be given the leeway of operating on a one line budget. With those few remarks, I wish to support."
}