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"id": 881360,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kajiado, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Katoo ole Metito",
"speaker": {
"id": 13239,
"legal_name": "Janet Marania Teyiaa",
"slug": "janet-marania-teyiaa"
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"content": "That should satisfy that requirement. This nominee is well known to me. He has served as an intelligence officer and rose through the ranks up to the level of Chief Intelligent Officer. I have no doubt whatsoever on his capacity and ability to serve in this commission. Therefore, I wish to request Members that they give him full support. The last nominee, Mr. John Ole Moyaki, is from my county. I want to plead with Members that this nominee was our first nominee for the position of Chairperson to Kajiado County Public Service Board. As you may know, all the County Public Service Boards in the 47 counties started from scratch; part of their achievements were to ensure that there was a county service board in place and a county organisational structure. These are great achievements and they deserve to serve as commissioners at the national level. I want to highlight three issues on the National Police Service Commission. If approved by this House, it should take them seriously. One is salary harmonisation. There has been a lot of agitation, especially from graduate police officers who claim that the structures as put by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) do not favour them. In a way, they may have lost some coins as graduate police officers. This commission needs to take that issue seriously. If there are loopholes in the salary structure, they need to work with the SRC and harmonise the salaries of police officers. The second issue is on housing. I agree with the Member who talked about the big issue of welfare of police offices. I have reservation on the idea of police officers living with members of the public as part of police reforms. As a former Minister in charge of Provincial Administration and Internal Security, I do not agree with the idea. It was not well thought out. There are merits and demerits of allowing police officers to live with members of the public. As a policeman, you are in charge of security. When you guard the citizens and their properties, your life is at risk. Policemen are the first people who are at risk than anyone else in this country. Allowing them to live in the same estates with members of the public would be exposing them to criminals they could have arrested and taken to court. I know they will not be armed while in those estates. Police officers are safer living in their own quarters. So, that idea needs to be given a second thought. The third one is on recruitment. I must congratulate the Jubilee Government, led by his Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta. When he took over in 2013, we were way below the required United Nations police officer to civilian ratio. At that time, the ratio was 1:900 whereas the UN requirement is 1:450. The Jubilee administration took deliberate moves of recruiting more officers. We are now below the ratio of 1:450. We are at about 1:400. That is a good achievement. Once these nominees are approved by this House, they need to look at the structure of the National Police Service, which is bottom-heavy. We have recruited a lot of officers at the bottom. We have done reforms that recognise merit at the top. However, in the middle-level cadres, there is a gap. They need to effect some promotions to fill the middle-level gap before they conduct recruitment at the lower level. We now have a police force that is bottom- heavy. Maybe, that is what they considered as the reason for not recruiting for one year. The National Police Service did not recruit officers last year. So, they will need to look into the aspect of staffing levels. I want to support all the six nominees for one good reason."
}