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{
    "id": 459422,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/459422/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 578,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "anything, criminals in Kenya now have realized that it amounts to nothing and they are getting bolder. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I shudder to think what is going to happen next because it appears that criminals in Kenya now have the latitude to do anything and everything that they want anytime and everywhere. We have to ask as a House: What is this Government waiting for? This is because the rate at which this thing is going I will not be surprised if senior politicians in this country are carjacked and killed by criminals. I will not be surprised if senior religious leaders in this country are carjacked or killed by criminals. The rate at which crime is growing in Kenya I will not be surprised if senior members of the Executive are kidnapped or killed by criminals. God forbid, I will not even be surprised if senior members of the diplomatic community seconded to our country are kidnapped and killed by criminals. I do not wish it to happen that way. It has happened in other countries and so it can happen here. I hope that it will not happen but I fear that it may happen that way. If we do not want to surrender this country to criminals, the time for forceful action is now. As we look at the amendments on the National Police Service Act, irrespective of whether some of us, like I do, feel that it may be contradicting some parts of the Constitution, I want to submit that, as a country, we tend to be too concerned with governance issues as opposed to issues of operation. For me, that is where the insecurity problem in Kenya is coming from. Let us look at the police service, for example. We have the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), the National Police Service (NPS) and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA). These are constitutional bodies. I do not know if any hon. Member of this House can account for what, for example, the IPOA has done in the three years it has been in existence, yet it is populated by overpaid and underworked people, who, in my view, do nothing. We probably do not even need the IPOA. What is worrying is that if you go to any police station in the countryside today, you will see that there are no housed officers. If a crime is committed, police officers cannot respond because they have been given fuel for Kshs3, 000, which they have exhausted. I do not know whether it is happening to me alone but many times, I have had to finance the police for them to fuel their cars to attend to crime scenes. Why are we concerned with governance issues that are not working when what we need to do is empowering our police officers? Some police officers do not even have cars. There are Officers Commanding Police Divisions (OCPDs) who do not even have offices. There are OCPDs who do not even have cars. How do we expect them to tackle crime? Not a single week passes without an hon. Member rising to talk about insecurity. Insecurity is all over the country, including the President’s backyard in Gatundu and the Deputy President’s backyard in Eldoret. In the last two months, Murang’a County recorded over 11 unexplained kidnappings. Why are we even thinking of this amendment? Something is wrong with the structure of our policing institutions in this country. Unless we address the problem and avoid courting it in the name of governance, wanting to know who between Kavuludi and Kimaiyo is more powerful; in my view, it is irrelevant. Kavuludi is a former teacher. He has no business running the police force. Similarly, Kimaiyo is a trained policeman but what has he done? We have to question these things. We are being affected. Do we want The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}