Digital OB major leap forward for the police

The launch of the Digital Occurrence Book (OB) at Kasarani Police Station on Friday, November 22, 2019. [John Muchucha]

November 22, 2019 will forever remain an important and memorable date in the history of policing in Kenya.

When the clock struck midnight, the first digital Occurrence Book (OB) entry was made at the Kasarani Police Station, Nairobi, marking a departure from manual to digital entries and with that, ushering in the new era of digitised police records.

While sitting before that computer and making the very first entry at midnight, I was satisfied that indeed, the National Police Service was on the right path; that the operationalisation of a digital Occurrence Book was a great milestone in the journey of police reforms.

All police stations within Kasarani sub-county are now fully covered, and the entire Nairobi County will follow suit in a few weeks before the system is rolled out nationally.  

The journey began on January 7, 2019 when we launched the Human Capital Information Management System at Kilifi sub-county headquarters at an event graced by our Cabinet Secretary for Interior, Fred Matiang’i. 

The system is now fully operational. The operationalisation of the digital occurrence book is a great landmark in the history of the National Police Service.

This is because it is the backbone of the digitisation of police operations.

Police operations begin at the Report Office, where initial reports are made by members of the public.

This initial report is the point from which every subsequent police action shall be initiated.

With the digitisation of the Occurrence Book, the issue of loss of pages or disappearance of entire occurrencebooks will be a thing of the past, as an entry in the Digital Occurrence Book will be a permanent record.

Give directions

The greatest advantage is that the national commands, including my office, the Deputy Inspector General and the Director of Criminal Investigations will be able to monitor every report entered and action taken in any police station in Kenya from their offices.

Regional, county, sub-county and ward police commanders will also be able to monitor and give directions in respect of their areas of jurisdiction.

This will enhance supervision of police operations in the field from the commanders’ level and make every police officer more accountable towards duty.

The ultimate result will be a more effective, efficient and responsive service.

The exercise will be a pilot project in the larger Nairobi as we plan to roll it out in other parts of the country.

With the occurrence book fully digitised, the next level of police operations’ digitisation will target important police records like serious crime register, arms movement register, and exhibit register.

Another police operation in the pipeline for digitisation is development of a Case File Management System to be used by investigators and Directorate of Criminal Investigations personnel in their investigative operations.

Performance appraisals

It is our hope that there will be no cases of abuse of systems in the service as we serve the public with the digitisation programme.

The system also supports the selection, recruitment and management of police officers, deployment, performance appraisals, merit-based promotions, and transparent transfers.

It gives the Inspector General a bird’s eye view of the National Police Service, making it easy to identify vacancies and the skills needed to fill in these vacancies.

This is in line with the government’s policy of digitising services that are critical to service delivery to Kenyans whose ultimate result will be a more effective, efficient and responsive Police Service.

Service reforms

It is also in line with ongoing police service reforms programme that is being rolled out countrywide.

As a country, we are gearing towards being at par with developed countries technology-wise. In this era of digitisation, it will be wrong, as a service, to be left behind.

I urge my colleagues in the service to always be strive to catch up with happenings in the erst of world in terms of technology as a way of making sure they meet the needs of the public.

Police officers must embrace technology to keep pace with the evolution of crime, as we strive to provide a first-class service.

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all our stakeholders for the support and co-operation that has enabled us to reach this far.

Further, I call upon partners in the security sector, stakeholders in the criminal justice system and members of the public to co-operate with us as we move from manual to digital police operations.

Mr Mutyambai is the Inspector General, National Police Service