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{
    "id": 420533,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/420533/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 187,
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    "content": "called ghost workers and yet, they are actually not ghosts. People know them, but do nothing about it. If we can seal all those loopholes, we would not even be having the President talking about pay-cuts in a manner that we are hearing. This is because those pay-cuts do not help. We want to manage, create efficiency, reduce wastage and put money to better use. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, even more important, the Government does not have to spend its money. Just set up a serious insurance cover that covers the family post the head of the family in case of any eventuality. If a young officer dies on the frontline, the insurance takes up. The Government will have committed itself and paid the premiums. From the time such an event happens – we do not wish it to happen, but it does happen – then the Government with the insurance, will take up the matter. We will not even go to the Exchequer and say: Give us money for this. The Exchequer will be making a one-off payment per annum in terms of premiums which are not heavy. The results and benefits are so immense that it is actually a compelling reason for this Motion, not only to be passed, but followed to implementation. In fact, I wish that Sen. Muthama or somebody else who will speak after me could mount an amendment to create compulsory insurance for these officers, so that we are not all the time told by the mandarins at the Treasury that there is not money available. It becomes automatic and taken up by insurance. This is done in other jurisdictions. So, it is not something new for Kenya and our officers. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the other issue even as we talk about this is the manner in which our security forces are looked after. If you go to a county like Turkana that I am so close to because the chairman of my party, the distinguished Senator for Turkana, Sen. Munyes invites me there quite regularly, and in a county where cattle rustling is very rife and very common, you find a local citizen carrying an AK47 gun on the shoulder and a policeman is standing there with a G3. How can you battle an AK47 with a G3? So, when these Toposas strike from South Sudan and when the police hear the sound of gunfire the first thing they do is to run as fast as their legs can take them. This is happening because you cannot possibly resist an AK47 with a G3. We need also to minimize deaths and injuries that take these officers out of duty. We need to equip them properly; we need to give them facilities to work. You can imagine the case that happened in Suguta Valley. Imagine fresh graduated police officers or young men who did not even know the terrain were dispatched to fight cattle rustlers there. They did not know how to battle cattle rustlers, in the first place. They were freshly trained or half-baked and after six months they were told to take their guns and follow the rustlers into the valley. You remember they were all trapped and shot dead. We lost over 30 officers at the same time. Again 21 guns were shot in the air for each one of them and that was the end of the story. Yet we could have done things better. What I am saying is that the State must be responsible and responsive to the needs of its citizens who sacrifice their time, lives and die in the line of duty. I believe this is something that my brother Sen. G.G. Kariuki who has been a Minister for Internal Security could agree with because I am sure he was visited many times by similar requests. For example, they would confront him and say: “My husband died, I do not The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}