Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi says police must among other things embrace technology, saying crime can longer be fought with a firearm alone/MOSES MUOKI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 28- Senior police officers have been challenged to change their attitude while executing their mandate and instead embrace modern ways of policing.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi says the police must among other things embrace technology, saying crime can longer be fought with a firearm alone.
He was speaking at the Police Training College in Loresho Monday where he addressed senior police commanders attending a leadership course, while in the company of ICT CS Joe Mucheru as well as Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet.
He said crime has become sophisticated and only modern policing that includes a good working relationship with members of the public will help contain some of the vices.
“You cannot just rely on being able to hold a weapon as a way of dealing with crime. We have to think differently and we have to acquire different resources which include more knowledge, understanding the sophistication of crime and the environment will live in,” he said. “We must be a service as required by the Constitution.”
He said communal inclusion is fundamental to the success of the service.
In a bid to improve the working environment, CS Matiangi said the National Police Service is set to start an annual assessment of the best police station in the country an exercise set kick off on July.
To motivate police officers, he said the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) that has been rated the best will be promoted.
Among the considerations will include how clean a police station is, level of interaction with the community, how responsive they are to security issues, among others.
Police stations are traditionally known for being untidy with low levels of interaction with the community, in what Interior CS says is likely to hamper service delivery.
Addressing the Regional Commanders, CS Mucheru on his part committed to work with the National Police Service in the digitization process, which has already kicked off with having a digital record for all officers.
Mucheru said the two ministries were also working closely towards automating the police occurrence book.
“The police service is being digitized,” he said.
Already, some 20,000 police officers have been registered digitally in the ongoing exercise to have a digital human resource information management system.
The exercise will see all the 90,000 police officers’ information captured that will then be translated to a personal profile.
The exercise started in Kilifi County and is expected to be rolled out in all the 47 counties.
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