County Inspectorate Officers must be monitored

A friend of mine once joked that he is better off being accosted by thugs than having a tiff with County Inspectorate Officers commonly referred to as council askaris. He made sense!

The Inspectorate Officers are supposed to enforce the law but instead they are the worst brutes anyone can encounter. A scrutiny of their performance depicts numerous glitches, which must be addressed by the respective county governments to ensure that they discharge their mandate within the confines of the law and with the dignity which civilised people deserve.

The capacity of the officers seems to be too low considering that their training schools are hardly known, and the curriculum and the training modes and length being questionable. A properly trained professional should exhibit the qualities of competence in the line of his or her duty. It is either that the curriculum is low on content or not in tandem with the high threshold which civility demands. Consider the recent clash between the Mombasa County askaris and Public Service operators which left one man with a broken leg and scores of others injured.

I would be glad to know the entry requirements in terms of basic education grades, age and gender considerations. This is because the askaris I have encountered are men who don't exhibit any signs of proper schooling.

In Nairobi, hawkers have narrated gory tales of how they have been attacked with machetes, knifes and broken bottles.

The city inspectorate departments must put in place measures to ensure that order and civility is maintained. This can only be guaranteed if the right people are recruited, properly trained and an oversight mechanism to ensure that they act within the law and have respect for human rights.

The oversight mechanism should provide a platform for complaints reporting and processing so that aggrieved people can provide information on wayward officers and also commend the magnificent ones.