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{
    "id": 503157,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/503157/?format=api",
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    "content": "facilities and equipment that they need to secure Kenyans in this country. We have a huge shortage of police personnel in this country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the cost of running and recruiting enough security personnel may not be achieved in the short term in this country, but we want to appreciate the Government’s commitment and the steps being taken to increase the number of police officers being recruited and trained every year. This year the Government recruited 10,000 police officers. This is the largest number of police recruitment that has ever been done in this country. However, it saddens me that certain arms, through the instigation of certain institutions, ended up cancelling the exercise. In fact, a court order was issued to cancel the recruitment of exercise. We need to have a better way of recruiting police officers to ensure that the integrity of the process is maintained. This will enable the Government to fill the gap in the security apparatus. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if the 10,000 recruited officers were allowed to go for training, it means that in the next ten months those officers would be absorbed in the security system. This would enhance the efficiency that would help this country address security issues. We appreciate that the national Government may not meet the threshold required by the international standards of the public-police ratio and that is why the issue of police reservist is important. Some of us initially had issues with this Bill because my concern was that we run the risk of creating a parallel police force. We will be recruiting a large of police reservists who would be armed, but not trained like the police officers. My concern was; how do we ensure that the Kenya Police Reservists (KPRs) are properly trained and are supervised properly to ensure that they are accountable? This will also enable us to facilitate them. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, on Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Obure and I had a lengthy discussion with the late Sen. Kajwang. He was supporting this Bill from the word go. I crossed over to the side where Sen. Kajwang sat and we had a discussion for almost 15 minutes. He took us through the challenges and it was evident when he stood up to contribute to the Motion. He was able to capture the real issues. He was able to address the challenges that the Kenyan security operates undergo. He articulated and elaborated the reasons the KPRs would step into the gap. Yesterday, some of us did not get a chance to contribute, but the contribution of the late Sen. Kajwang on this issue, gave us a lot of insight on how this country needs to be strategic in a manner guided by the law, being in sync with the Constitution, being able to look at a mechanism of ensuring that there is synergy and synchrony within the security apparatus of this country. The challenges facing this country calls for extra ordinary measures up to and including the deployment of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) to quell some of the difficult situations that we find ourselves in as a country. It is important that in each and every engagement that we find ourselves in and as we address the challenges within the security sector, we should do it within the law. I want to appreciate that this law helps us to institutionalize and provide facilitation to the KPRs so that they can engage and deliver on the issues assigned to them. We should appreciate that whereas the KPRs would be helpful in dealing with some of these challenges, we need to provide sufficient safeguards so that the facilitation and equipment provided would not be used in the negative sense. 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."
}