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{
    "id": 389660,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/389660/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 72,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "September 18, 2013 SENATE DEBATES 7 Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Not Turkana people! These are bandits, but KPRs have been assisting us a lot. When we raise this issue, we are told we have the Administration Police (APs). However, there are only three AP officers stationed there and they are unable to cover the whole area. My proposal here is that we engage more of these people. We train and remunerate them by giving them a stipend per month. We can go further than that where we have problems. I am talking about the boundary between the two counties of Turkana and West Pokot. It stretches all the way to Samburu near the Suguta Valley where we had problems the other day. We should identify these people and put them in a camp. After recruiting them from the two communities, they should be put them in a camp the way they normally do with the General Service Unit (GSU). After putting them together we should assign a policeman, an AP or a GSU officer to stay in the same camp. They should also be given a vehicle for surveillance to ensure that law and order is restored in those areas. I also note with concern that there is no road network in some of those areas. So, the security officers cannot move around in their big lorries within some areas. When these KPRs are there, they can give cover to the villages. At the moment, they are providing still providing security, but from within their own houses. So, for one man to cover an area alone is not easy. Some of these people are pastoralists and they migrate. They keep on moving with their animals and guns. It is not very easy for them to stamp their authority. There is no much financial implication. There is no prize that we cannot pay for peace, considering that we have lost lives before. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is a national issue. But when I look back where I come from and considering what our neighbours have done in Uganda, we need to do a lot. They have put camps all the way from Mt. Elgon to the border of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan in places where there is rampant cattle rustling. This is what I am talking about. They have about 50 or 100 people in one camp supplemented by their own army. What has happened now is that we have a lot of peace along the Kenya/Uganda now than in the little borders in the counties inside Kenya. The duty of these people is to move into the villages and make sure that anybody who has an illegal gun is forced to surrender it. There will be an official government body that is supposed to take care of the people. Some people may think that we are going too far addressing this issue. We have been trying to do so for the last 50 years, but the same problem persists up to date. We may have to do some things out of our way if that will bring peace. I have mapped all the areas along the Kenya/Uganda border. During recess I took time to visit some of these areas, for example, Katimor. If we talk to people from Trans Nzoia, Turkana, West Pokot and the Karamoja of Uganda, probably, they will propose to us to put a camp at Katikomor or Kanyerus where we only have three administration police officers. There is a camp across the border in Uganda which houses over 300 officers. This camp is located a kilometre from the border. So, who is giving us peace? Is it our neighbour security officers or ours? We need to train people and take them to Kokochwaya, Alakas Lasal, Lokitanyala and Naiyopong at the border of West Pokot and Trans Nzoia. Right now, we have a problem where bandits from both sides engage in cattle rustling. People steal animals from their neighbours because they are poor. They do not have any other engagement to make ends meets. We should stamp our authority using these people then move further to provide economic activities like irrigation for farming, markets for the animals and so on."
}