Chiefs listen to Interior PS Karanja Kibicho at the Kenya School of Government/JEREMIAH WAKAYA
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 18 – Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho has said the government is keen on improving the welfare of security officers in the country in order to help them deliver on their mandate.
Speaking on Thursday at the Kenya School of Government in Kabete during a meeting with senior security officers drawn from Nairobi county, Kibicho said the Jubilee Administration will continue to enhance the capacity of security organs in the country including chiefs and their assistants saying the role they play is vital in promoting law and order in the nation.
“A government that is putting 3,000 vehicles to serve 500 police stations in the country is a government that is not joking about security,” he pointed out.
Kibicho said the procurement of motorbikes for the chiefs was a proof of improved working conditions for the officers adding that the Ministry will soon do the same for the more than 9,000 Assistant Chiefs in order to further enhance their mobility.
“Every chief in this country has a motorcycle and we have started a process of ensuring every Assistant Chief also gets. We’re determined to ensure that they’re mobile,” he said.
The Principal Secretary assured the officers that the Ministry was committed to continuously enhancing the scheme of service for the officers to conform to the new structure of national administration which he said was restructured in a very short period of time following the coming into effect of the Constitution of Kenya 2010.
Kibicho however cautioned the administrators against acting cowardly saying the officers’ mandate is clearly defined in law and that the restructuring of the former Provincial Administration did not in any way cut down on their mandate.
“Some very crafty fellows decided to interpret the law to suggest that the national administration is being scraped,” he observed. “ When you people were threatened and you decided to create a vacuum in the structure, every evil thing started occupying that space and what we saw was almost a collapse of social order and petty crime coming back even in untraditional areas.”
Challenging the security officers to take full control over their areas, Kibicho said that the introduction of a medical cover for the officers through the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) in partnership with AMREF and Kenya Red Cross should be a reason enough to motivate them to serve citizens with zeal and commitment.
“Since independence, Police now have a Sh5.3 billion comprehensive insurance cover,” he said adding that the current regime had delivered results in the security sector that cannot be equated to all the previous governments combined.
Kibicho observed that the police to citizen ratio had significantly improved from 1:800 to about half the number, saying that once the current police trainees graduate the ratio will further improve to a ratio of 1:380.
“The combination of efforts between you and the Police is what has brought this country to the kind of peace we are enjoying. You break it for a week and you see where we go.
He however challenged the security officers to take courses in administration studies to increase their chances of getting promotions saying the promotions will be done on the basis of merit.
“What we shall be doing is that we allow common cadre to move up to Job Group L without necessarily engaging in lengthy processes of advertising for those vacancies. So we will exempt the positions of chiefs and the assistants from this processes – once you pass the suitability taste you will be given the position,” he said adding that assistant chiefs who qualify will be given the first priority whenever the position of a chief in falls vacant.
Kibicho was accompanied by Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett and Nairobi Regional Coordinator Ann Ng’etich.
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