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{
    "id": 68398,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/68398/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 261,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "(Prof. Saitoti): Thank you very much, indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. Let me begin with hon. Karua. First of all, she wanted to find out the Government commitment to implementing the police reforms. I would like to inform this House that indeed we have moved very far and had we actualized the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution, the first lot of the Bills which would have come here would have been the Bills related to the police reforms. We already have got five Bills ready, fully prepared and validated by all the stakeholders. I talk here of the following fundamental Bills - the one very important Bill is the Independent Oversight Authority. We have a Bill to set up an independent oversight authority which, once it is in place, if the police do something, any person, any citizen can lodge a complaint. That will be an independent body which will be chaired by a person qualified to be a judge. That will be done in a transparent manner. We also have another Bill which has already been validated by the relevant stakeholders; the Police Service Commission Bill. It will detach the employment of the police from the Public Service Commission so that they can have their own police service commission. That Bill is ready. There is also a Bill on policing; fundamentally re-arranging the entire police including the appointment of the Inspector-General of the Police. There are quite a number of them. I can assure you that immediately the Committee on the Implementation of the Constitution is in place, when we come back after recess, we are going to be able to introduce about five Bills. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is true we are going to make sure that we are sensitizing the police, especially that chapter on the Bill of Rights. This is important. We are holding quite a number of seminars to sensitize the police about the rights of individuals and the fact that if they are carrying out investigations, it must be done with decorum. Regarding the issue raised by hon. Joho, I did not at all in my own submission here say that we are pursuing Muslims or this ethnic group. We are pursuing criminals. That is the only thing and I think we need to look into that one. Let us forget about ethnicity or religion. Let us all resolve to fight crime because it is a very serious bit. As far as hon. Mungatana is concerned, he wanted me to unveil the tactics that we are going to use to increase police surveillance on the criminals. There will be more plainclothes policemen, and there will be use of more sophisticated weapons to detect these weapons"
}