Get the police out of these ruins

By Muchiri Waititu

“Security is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God, no matter what the danger.”

Last week, Mombasa went up in flames and the result was the tragic loss of four people, three of whom were policemen. When the petrol bombs and stones started flying, these poor souls were the first line of defence for the people of Mombasa.

Policemen in this country, despite their very important role in Kenyan society, live in the most deplorable conditions. Due to an antiquated rule in the establishment of the Kenya Police Service, all non-commissioned policemen have to live within police lines in police stations.

The history of the Kenyan police, which started in 1887 primarily as a security unit for the Imperial British East African Company is largely to blame for the ‘barracking’ of our officers. Through the ages, the Police force was used by the Government primarily as a custodian of the ruling class interests and the suppression of Nationalistic tendencies. This mindset by the Government therefore meant that the Police were considered as an extension of the army and needed to be mobilised quickly to stamp out insurgencies. During the emergency, it led to the creation of the police depot in Mathare, a mass housing camp for policemen, that survives to this day. You need to see it to appreciate what a police barracks looks like.

Different dispensation

This mindset may have made sense during the emergency and even in certain remote areas of the country where banditry is still rife. My humble theory is that this no longer holds water.

During public hearings in 2009 by the Police Reform Task Force, a surprising outcome from the public was that the fiercest critics of the police also came out very strongly to plead for their working conditions to be improved. In Garissa for example, they explained how the local police had to work under impossible conditions; appalling housing, inadequate equipment, low salaries and no medical cover if they sustained injuries during the course of their duties.

The Government, to its credit, is trying to come up with ways to address this issue. It has allocated Sh2billion in this year’s budget and approved the construction of 27,000 units in 2006. This number has never been constructed. According to the Commissioner of Police, 33,000 regular police officers and 25,000 Administration Police officers are not housed adequately. The reason for this slow production of houses can best be illustrated by the recent scandal for Ndhiwa Police Station where the construction of Ndhiwa police lines made headlines for irregular procurement of the contractor.

This, however, is not enough. The police have been at the forefront of promoting community policing where the general public is expected to supplement police patrols and a lot of flowery rhetoric. I contend that this will not work for the simple reason that the police still view themselves as a separate entity from the general public. There is still a lot of ‘we and you’ in the mind-set. The Police are in the barracks and the public are ‘out there’. 

Positive take

I choose to see this situation in a different light. The glass is half full and presents an opportunity to correct the perception of the police, resolve community policing, reduce crime and free the police from the Barracks. It is my proposal that we remove the police from the police lines and house them like any other Kenyan, in our estates with ‘Wanjiku’.

In the year 2003, to increase police visibility in the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation, in conjunction with housing and community stakeholders, embarked on a vigorous drive to increase the number of Policemen living within the City by offering a number of incentives. These included discounted rentals, purchase incentives, courtesy officer units, retention incentives and down-payment assistance programmes.

It is not hard to explain why a police officer living next door to you would be a deterrent to the mugger down the street. The police officer’s children would play with your children; he would call you when his car battery was flat and needed jumper cables. His wife would be a member of the women’s guild with your wife. Most of all, he would think twice before clubbing his neighbour with a rungu if he found you shouting ‘haki yetu’. Security would be assured in the neighbourhood because there would be police presence everywhere.

In living with the spirit of the new Constitution, it would therefore give rise to a new school of thought. Instead of using Sh2 Billion in the construction of exclusive Police houses, the amount would be better used as a secured facility by the Police Service to allow its employees to enter into mortgage arrangements with developers and banks. The Police officer would then pay a discounted mortgage rate of say three per cent and even more importantly, own the house.

Other incentives from the Government would be to offer tax incentives for developers to give affordable housing to the police or to dedicate a percentage of new developments to police in return for tax concessions.

In doing so, a scenario will be created where the police live in dignity and with benefits. This will produce a police force, which is no longer a tool for suppressing our rights but a service that literally secures our constitutional right to security.

The writer is a director at AIA and Vice chair of the AAK’s Chapter of Construction Project Management.