Nairobi, Kenya, Feb 6 – Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki says 60 percent of all livestock stolen in 10 bandit prone areas have been recovered in the past three months.
He singled out West Pokot, Laikipia, Meru, Turkana, Garissa, Samburu, Marsabit, Kitui, Elgeyo Marakwet and Tana River counties as the areas worst hit by banditry.
Speaking Monday while issuing out a public accountability statement after 100 days in office, the Interior CS said that security teams across the affected counties engaged in various operations to recover the remaining livestock.
“Security teams across these counties are actively tracing the missing 40 per cent of stolen livestock as law enforcement agencies monitor the meat supply chain across urban areas in the Country to disrupt the existing criminal food-chain,” Kindiki said.
The Interior CS further said that the government has rolled out robust strategies to disrupt the proliferation of small arms in the Kerio Valley belt and other cattle-rustling areas through strategic and intelligence-led disarmament.
In addition, Kindiki said that the State is involving the local communities in protecting livestock and working on transparent, open, fair and accountable hiring of police reservists in livestock-rustling and banditry hotspots.
As a result of these efforts, the Interior CS stated that the government has managed to reopen 15 schools that had been closed due to bandit attacks.
“It is possible to end this menace,” he said.
He added that the Government is investing in community-based intelligence, drone surveillance technology, modern personal protection equipment and kitting for the security personnel and application of land and air assets to neuter bandits and rustlers.
Kindiki pointed out that banditry and livestock rustling have occasioned untold social-economic decay that has in turn worsened the marginalization of affected communities.
He singled out closure of schools, abandoned market centres and deserted health facilities as evidence of the effects of banditry.
Kindiki noted that as a result of unending conflicts in some parts of the country many individuals had given up on the Government.
However, the Interior CS said that the gains over the last 100 days shows that the government is slowly rebuilding public trust in the State and the security agencies who continue to secure bandit prone areas.
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