The various
spontaneous report running in our mainstream media like the recent High Court orders on KDF to release 26 former
soldiers who had been accused of
dissertation of duty in search of
green pastures offered by foreign security firms as reported by the
standard newspapers , to the case of the two
police officers arrested with cache of ivory ferrying it to Nairobi from
Meru and other undercover cases that go unnoticed by the general public
underscores the need for the state authorities to revitalize the
wheels of justice with an aggressive but diplomatic Maasai rungu.
Towards the
end of last year parliament tabled the Military Veterans Bill 2013 that was meant to establish and institute
mechanisms of rewarding benefits to the military war veterans and their dependants
there of , I hope that the National
Police Service Commission
extends the olive branch to the police force too.
However of critical importance is the need to shift away from short term
measures whenever we are struck by war
crimes or security disasters; there has been a tendency to mobilize funds for the fallen victims
through Paybill Numbers running on
various Telco’s platforms such as MPESA,
it must be noted that however
philanthropic it is , it negates the whole reason why we pay for taxes for services not rendered. Our men and women
in uniform as they often referred to, do deserve dignity and honour in
rendering services to wananchi , the cases of
police and military who find themselves
dismembered by acts of war do not
need to be dismembered by the state when it comes to paying their benefits ,
remuneration and most importantly their
dependants and the methodology of reincorporating and intergrating returning soldiers suffering from psychological effects in our mainstream society through well thought out counselling plans before reuniting with their families and the general public . In today’s changing African society there is a great correlation
between pecuniary motivation and patriotism ,
for patriotism is being eroded by graft and diminishing cultural virtues. The externalities we are
experiencing today in terms of terrorism are partly due to economic
mismanagement of public resources and the effects of Geopolitics driven by resource control.
Though
various laws do supplement the form in
which the Military Veterans Bill was
intended more needs to be done , for
instance the calculcation of GPA is usually based on Permanent Total
Disability under GPA - Eight Years (Basic Salary + House Allowance + Medical
Allowance) x Percentage awarded as
provided for under the Insurance Act cap
487 , what props in any sane mind is the entry level salaries and the prevailing
salary at the time of death , are they
worth given someone’s age and period of service.
The introduction of medical and life insurance covers by the
government last year following upon recommendations by the task force chaired by Justice (Rtd) Philip Ransley that introduction of the comprehensive medical
insurance cover to take care of the health of the police officers on account of
their high-risk exposure was a good step forward however there is need to
invest more in security education , better remuneration, new forms of
technology and above cutting of wastage
public resources our security spending is the highest in the horn of Africa
region but at the same time it beats the
purpose of communities having to invest
and build police posts yet each and every
year we have slightly over $2billion dollars that goes unaccounted for by the
government, the Controller of Budget Audit report for FY
2011/2012 explains it all where kes 300 billion was unaccounted for.
What the government needs to realize that having more police officers and boots
on the ground is one thing,on the contrary just use of resources for educating and empowering the citizenry is a noble solution
for our safety building a purely individualistic capitalist society won’t take
us anywhere.
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