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{
    "id": 91177,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/91177/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 147,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ms. Karua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 166,
        "legal_name": "Martha Wangari Karua",
        "slug": "martha-karua"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to support the Motion and also to break the monotony of listening to the Government congratulate itself. We must, for the reasons given by the last speaker condemn the leadership of the police for not having found out who killed innocent people at Uhuru Park. If Uganda can investigate and within days arrest culprits, then what is happening in Kenya? If Tanzanian police cannot only arrest, but also sentence a person who is trafficking human beings, what is happening in Kenya? We cannot just be asking for more money and returns are not showing! It is true that this is a vital service and that is why I am supporting this Vote, but unlike my colleagues, I am not supporting that they get a penny more. The reason they cannot appreciate Kshs45 billion is that they are not changing their mindsets. The budgeting is the old method of exaggerated cost of services and goods. If the Ministry is buying vehicles in their thousands, why can they not negotiate factory prices? The Government still uses the Ministry of Public Works which determines prices above the market price. I am saying this having been an insider in Government and having voted unsuccessfully because the Ministry of Public Works recommends higher prices than the ones ordinary people are buying for. Does it make sense to anyone that a bulk buyer gets a higher price than the one buying one unit? If that is not corruption, I do not know what it is. About the equipment that the police need, and I support the fact that they must be equipped to look after the security, it is again about the market price. The Kshs45 billion, with serious budgeting, can do wonders. We can have our police earning more than what they earn now. Currently, the lowest paid police officers have been added Kshs2,000 and have been told that, that is reforms. We need something to happen in this Ministry. I urge the Minister to lead from the front. It is reform time and let us see a reformed way of budgeting. We can lament that our ratio is not right. How will it help us if we have more and they do not have equipment? Why do we not start by re-organizing and ensuring that they have the equipment and the training they need? I must lament here that two days after we passed the new Constitution, precisely on Friday 6th August, 2010 I saw traders at Kongowea Market in Mombasa being beaten by the police worse than Reverend Njoya was beaten. I also saw the police two weeks ago in Ruiru throwing teargas at octogenarian women. By now, heads should have rolled. The responsible officers should have been brought to book. Reforms are not just about money but about the way things are done. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want the Minister to know that as a representative of the people, and as a Kenyan, I am totally dissatisfied with the manner police project the reforms. Let us see a change in mindsets and civility in the way they address people. Let us also see police accounting for everybody killed in the course of arrest. I know that there are circumstances that warrant sometimes police to open fire to defend their lives and the lives of others, but to avoid this channel being used by rogue officers to kill people, let us have an audit of people killed in the course of arrest and a team assessing whether the force used was reasonable, so that we do not have people who are trigger happy at all times."
}