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"content": "demoralized police force must be addressed urgently by the Government if we have to hold this country together and lead it to the path of economic development and prosperity as outlined in our Vision 2030. It is in recognition of the inadequacy of the police that the Government over the years relied on the KPRs. In the colonial days, we had the tribal police. Over the years, the KPRs have done a great job. These are ordinary citizens who eat their own food, wear their own clothes, but perform very difficult tasks in very difficult conditions. It is criminal for us, as leaders, not to recognise the role that these patriotic Kenyans are playing. That is why we, as a Senate, are supporting this Bill. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you look at the geographical distribution of the KPRs, they are largely confined in far-flung remote areas, basically pastoralist areas. That is the reason there is so much insecurity in those areas and cattle rustling has gone on for a long time. This is because of inadequate Government presence. In the past, there were theories in the West about strong governments in Africa with the big man syndrome. However, that is not the challenge. The challenge is not that, but having weak ineffective governments. If you look at areas where there is insecurity like in Nigeria where there is Boko Haram, it is not in Lagos, but in far-flung areas. I think those are the areas we should pay attention to if this country will curb insecurity. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, look at the way our army barracks are distributed. They are in Mombasa. In Nairobi, we have several barracks like Kahawa and Langata with soldiers who are just sleeping and eating food and doing nothing. There are others in Gilgil, Eldoret and Nanyuki. These are areas which were predominantly white highlands. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have not decolonised the distribution of the security forces in this country. Where we have very major insecurity, where there are incidences every day of people dying and property getting lost like in Turkana and Pokot, there is no army base. I would transfer this base or at least half of it from Langata and put it on the border between Turkana and Pokot. Then, I would put another base; a bigger one in Samburu, Marsabit and another one in northern Kenya. This is the only way we can have rapid response capacity in those areas which are hot beds of insecurity. When we talk about facilitating our police or security forces, the police only talk about one thing; money. In fact, when we came into Government in 2002, we doubled the salaries of police officers. For the first time, the APs were able to earn Kshs10,000. They were earning more than the District Officers (DOs), who they were guarding at that time. There was a protest from the DOs. Therefore, it is not purely a question of money, but there is also a question of morale. Even when Mengistu ran away from Ethiopia, he had the largest army in Africa. However, the army was demoralized and defeated by some ragtag army from the guerillas because they were psychologically defeated. So, we cannot fight insecurity in this country with a psychologically defeated police or KPRs. We need to have people who are highly motivated in what they are doing. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have tried in our County to do self-help to protect Meru County from cattle rustlers who largely come from Samburu and partly from Borana. We co-operated with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the County Government funded training of some people from Meru County in the training camp in Manyani. They were deployed because we created a buffer zone between Meru and Isiolo 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."
}