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{
    "id": 573290,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/573290/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 121,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Wandayi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2960,
        "legal_name": "James Opiyo Wandayi",
        "slug": "james-opiyo-wandayi"
    },
    "content": "constituency to provide funds to renovate the housing units of police officers almost in every location. Sometimes, we go to those housing units and get appalled. You cannot believe that police officers who are supposed to offer services are made to live in conditions that are outrightly dehumanising. Why is it not possible for the Government to properly provide for adequate funds to address the issues of remuneration and welfare of police officers? People will say that it is obviously a matter of budgetary constraints. That could well be so. However, a lot of money is wasted in this country through corruption. So, any sensible government would first and foremost look at ways of sealing the loopholes through which funds keep on being siphoned out by individuals for their own use at the expense of the citizens. If these monies were saved, we would have enough money to allocate to the police service to adequately compensate police officers for them to provide the services that citizens expect of them. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, on training, I must say that our police officers are fairly well trained. Indeed, the APs even look like they are better equipped and more trained than the regular police. Why do I say so? This is because in the villages, citizens are increasingly relying upon the APs for response purposes. They have responded very adequately and in a timely manner to distress calls even under the very difficult conditions that they operate in. So, what we only need is to provide mechanisms to make them motivated so that they continue offering these services in a manner that Kenyans will feel safe. The other issue is overburdening of police officers. We are talking about their welfare. This is within the limit. This country has one of the largest police officer to citizen ratio in the world. This is because you find police officers being assigned roles which are secondary to their primary mandate. The primary mandate of the NPS is to protect citizens and ensure law and order prevails in the country. However, many times you find police officers have been assigned roles which, in my view, could be done by other people, particularly the issue of police officers being assigned to provide security to the VIPs and their property. This is a serious drain on taxpayers’ money. I was happy the other day we debated the Private Security Regulation Bill. If that Bill sees the light of day, it will be possible for us to reserve the police officers for the work for which they are supposed to do. It is inconceivable that you can arm a police officer who went to bed hungry, whose children are at home unable to go to school because of lack of school fees and whose wife is at home bedridden because of sickness and the officer is unable to afford medical care. You provide this person with a firearm and send him to provide security and you expect him to perform. This is the fallacy we are talking about. We have seen cases in this country where police officers have been implicated in crimes. Those crimes happen because police officers are unable to make ends meet due to poor compensation. So, this Motion needs to be passed in its entirety as amended. Once the Motion has been passed, I call upon the Government to take definite steps to look for money in the manner I have suggested; seal the loopholes of corruption, get money, channel it to police officers and ensure accountability. We also do not want police officers to get money and fail to account for it."
}