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{
    "id": 861397,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/861397/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 268,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wambua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13199,
        "legal_name": "Enoch Kiio Wambua",
        "slug": "enoch-kiio-wambua"
    },
    "content": "One of the things that we have been crying out for as country, in regards to law enforcement officers in counties, is on their recruitment. The recruitment of enforcement officers, popularly known as askaris in the counties, has largely been an exercise shrouded in a lot of secrecy. I keep laughing at a situation that I witnessed in a county in this country, where a felon – someone who had broken the law - spent a night in a police cell for a petty offence of stealing chicken. He somehow gets out, and you meet the same person the following day wearing an askari uniform, wielding a club ostensibly to enforce the law and order, because he is now a county askari. Madam Temporary Speaker, when Sen. Khaniri moved this Bill, he said that it is long overdue. However, this is a Bill that would not have come at a better time than this. In fact, as I speak, our national security organs are in the process of publicly recruiting law enforcement service men and women. Everybody knows who is being recruited, where they are being recruited, where they come from, where they went to school and their certificates. I would want to see a situation like this being replicated in our counties where the recruitment of the people charged with the responsibility of keeping law and order is also made public. This is so that it is not something that is done behind closed doors, and only known to the person being recruited and their recruiters. Madam Temporary Speaker, sadly, as I speak today, a lot of these law enforcement officers in the counties have been reduced to tools which are at the disposal of the county executives to reign terror on people that do not think in the same line with county executives. Instead of them being enforcers of law and order, they become agents of impunity. I would urge the prosper of this Bill, Sen. Khaniri, to look into ways of ensuring that beyond specifying a code of conduct for these officers, we can enrich this legislation with general basic principles on a service charter for all county governments in the recruitment of these law enforcement officers. In that service charter, let us have situations where there is continuous training and assessment of the officers to conform with the exercise of proper public relations exercises because these people deal with the public on daily basis. We have a situation where these officers are trained, as Sen. Wetangula said, you would pity situations where you find the law enforcement officers treating innocent people like hardcore criminals. Madam Temporary Speaker, I will give an example of a woman who is found on the streets selling bananas, and an askari grabs her, literally throws her into an old moving vehicle. The askari then throws away the wares she was selling, takes that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}