NGO wants task force scrapped

              Charles Otieno, Usalama Reforms Forum lead researcher  (left) and Director of Police Reforms Jonathan Koskei during the launch of Usalama’s monitoring report yesterday.  [PHOTO: mbugua kibera/STANDARD]

By CYRUS OMBATI

A civil society organisation has faulted the formation of a task force to spearhead the Nyumba Kumi initiative.

The Usalama Reforms Forum said the task force, led by former PC Joseph Kaguthi, was likely to cost taxpapers  Sh200 million and later come up with an “obvious report”.

“The committee will travel around the country and abroad, hold many meetings and after years, prepare a  Nyumba Kumi report with recommendations on how to form another committee to oversee the implementation of the report,” said the forum’s lead researcher Charles Otieno.

He argued that the insecurity problems facing the country have been researched and are known to the authorities.

“The police are the problem and that needs to be addressed, including their capacity,” he said.

Dr Otieno argued that some members of the task force have been on past teams that researched crime  and established causes of insecurity and there was no need for such a task force.

He spoke yesterday when he presented the organisation’s third report on police reforms in the past 10 years, in which they argued the changes were yet to achieve the expected goals.

Ochieng said the solution to addressing crime lay in increasing police capacity and having political support for the anticipated changes.

He said their research had shown the Government has spent more than Sh8 billion on the community policing programme. Part of the money was used to establish 125 police stations and posts for community policing and publicity at large.

Guidelines

“However, with 10 years of community policing, the practice is yet to achieve its intended objectives,” said  the report.

The report says what Kenya has is either vigilantism or organised gangs working with the police in the name of community policing.

The report says the initiative requires guidelines on the role of the police and the community..

Under the Nyumba Kumi programme, all citizens are required to know at least 10 of their neighbours so as to prevent criminal activities.

CORD has termed this unconstitutional and declared: “Kenya cannot be a police State outside the constitutional arrangement set out in the basic law of the land.”