NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 3- The National Police Service has now digitized its services in measures aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery.
The move follows the digitization of services at the Judiciar, the Director of Public Prosecutions and several other government agencies.
“There is no turning back on this. It is going to work, it’s simple as that,” said Fred Matiangi, Kenya’s Interior Cabinet Secretary.
Matiangi spoke at BuruBuru Police Station in the capital Nairobi where he was accompanied by his counterpart from the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) docket, Joe Mucheru and several other senior government officials.
The officials had gathered at the station to launch the digitization process, starting with the Occurance Book (OB), where all incidents and complaints are recorded.
With the new system, Matiangi said the government hopes to weed out corruption because all complaints filed by members of the public must be followed, with real-time progress tracked by the seniors.
Complainants will be receiving their OB Number through a Short Message Service.
“It is the basis on which we are going to follow on promotions especially with the General Duty officers,” Matiangi said.
Police stations have been filing records and all complaints manually.
“We must now manage this openly and as we said, even as we do this, we must show people what we are doing,” the Interior CS said, lauding the ICT Ministry for the progress made in digitizing most of the operations in the government.
Police officers have been given 18 months to navigate through the new system.
Inspector-General of Police Hillary Mutyambai said the web-based system has been installed in all police stations in Nairobi, with officers provided with more than 10,000 iPads.
“The pilot project has been successful in Nairobi,” he said. “This is a great milestone for the National Police Service because we are the first [police] institution to use digital Occurrence Books.”
Officials said the new system will get real-time data on the trends of crime in the country, following the automation of processes.
The automation covers five areas which include Automation of Police Administration. With this, all police officers are registered, Automation of Police Investigations which covers forensic, integration of data, and crime analysis.
It will also see the digitization of the Occurrence Book.
According to the system developer Prof Theuri Mutahi, only registered officers can access the system, in a tightly guarded process that will guard against infiltrated.
He said the system is Web-based, meaning data will be saved in servers and can be retrieved upon need and will also generate reports for all officers in their specific areas of jurisdiction.
Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji has welcomed the move, saying it will enhance service delivery.
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