Kenya, Government to mop out illegal firearms

The government will mop out all illegal firearms in the insecurity prone areas of North Rift and Upper Eastern parts at the country in order to improve security in those areas.

The minister for state in charge of internal security and provincial Administration, Prof. George Saitoti said over the years, the country had experienced proliferation of small and light fire arms due to its porous borders with her unstable neighbours.

He said prolonged drought and instability in the neigbouring countries had led to rising insecurity in the country.
"We are surrounded with countries that have experienced instability in are way or another and this has made it possible for small arms to filter into the country. Policing our vast boarders has also been a challenge due to inadequate security personnel we have," Prof. Saitoti said.

He was speaking when he officially opened a peace and security meeting for Arid and Semi - Arid areas (ASAL) at a Naïvasha hotel Friday.

The meeting was told that since July this year, there has been over 90 banditry attack in the North Rift and Upper Eastern.

The meeting was attended by cabinet Ministers; Ibrahim Elmi Mohammed (Ministry of Development of Arid and Semi -Arid land) and Yusuf Haji (Defense Ministry) , Assistant Ministers and MPs from the ASAL region, the senior director for Internal Security; Mr . Mutea Iringo, Permanent Secretary, Francis Kimemia, AP Commandant Kinuthia Mbugua and Provincial Administrators from around the community.

Prof. Saitoti said the meeting is a follow -up of an earlier meeting which came up with Naivasha Action Plan 1 which made a number of recommendations, including disarmament.

"This meeting is basically meant to find out the progress meant on the recommendations made after the first meeting" the minister said.

Back to the disarmament exercise, the minister said the ministry was waiting for approval from the cabinet and urged Kenyans to co-operate on the matter.

The minister said the Government was ready and willing to reform the police force as per the recommendation of the Task force which are presented to the president last month and added that even the home guards will be screened more and be organized in a better way as there were allegations that some of the firearms in possession of the home guards were used in cattle-rustling.

"We want the police force to be guided by the principle of accountability where internal checks are enhanced to ensure discipline and external checks also  put in place to ensure complaints against the police are addressed" he said.

Prof Saitoti also said financial constraints due to meager budgetary allocations made it difficult for the ministry to live unto in mandate of providing adequate security to Kenyans.

He disclosed that ministry only managed to purchase 900 vehicles recently out of the over 4000 required in the entire police force due to meager resources.

 

Written By:KNA

 

Posted: Fri, Nov 20, 2009