Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 506089,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/506089/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 178,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Our forces in Kismayu have been accused by none other than the United Nations (UN) through the UN Monitoring group on Somalia. Their annual report which is published every July – this is available on the UN Website – has accused the KDF forces in Kismayu of engaging in trade of charcoal and supporting those who are engaged in illegal sugar trade. They are literally in business. We need to ask ourselves whether these strategies are working. For a long time, our security forces have argued that the KDF, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Kenya Police Service (KPS) are incapacitated by lack of resources. Parliament, last year voted Kshs165 billion to our security forces combined. After the Ministry of Education, this is the single largest sector that receives resources; Kshs175 billion is an awful lot of money. This Government has made sure that our security forces have the necessary equipment and vehicles up to the extent of providing insurance to police and many other things to make it possible for our security forces to act effectively in combating terrorism and other crimes. After the Constitution was passed, the Government embarked on a process of reforms, particularly police reforms. After many years, it was decided that we needed a KPS and a unified command that brought together, for instance, the regular police and the administration police. As recently as a few months ago, amendments were done to the National Police Service Act to give the Inspector-General more powers so that he can deal effectively with his force. Institutions like the NIS were revamped. They now get Kshs17 billion for their operations and yet we still have a problem after that has been done. The question is: Where is the problem? In many Motions here, I have said that the key challenges are in three areas. One is in the leadership of those institutions. Two, there is a challenge in the institutions themselves and in the structure. In the institutions, we also have challenges. We are in a situation where the KDF is being asked to police towns and highways to prevent or get involved in attacks like the one in Westgate Mall or situations like the one in Lamu. These are internal matters which our NPS should have taken care of. We have a situation where there are still differences between the administration police and the regular police in terms of their work and relationships. The more serious issue is where there is no coordination. In which case, the NIS have been telling us that intelligence has been given to police. However, the police say that they have not been given any intelligence. There is clearly a glaring disconnect between the different arms and absolute lack of coordination. The police reforms that were done to change the leadership and the commands structure we can say have literally stalled. We have not seen any fundamental activities in terms of vetting changing the face or structure of these institutions. All our regions face serious challenges. We have seen it in Kapedo, Turkana, Lamu and everywhere else. This country is faced with a serious matter. Kenyans have been patient and what we are getting from the Government is deflection. Deflection means that when something happens because of a particular failure, we are told that it happened because of something else. We get denials. We did not expect, after the new Constitution came into force, that our Government would continue in the path of deflecting, denying, pledging and promising this or that. We expected nothing else, but action. 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."
}