OPINION: Reforms In The Security Sector Critical To Improving Service Delivery

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov, 5-The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), of the National Police Service (NPS), has become a subject of public ire for alleged extrajudicial killings and disappearances. DCI’s Special Services Unit (SSU) has been disbanded.

It is imperative that anybody who commits a crime should be brought to justice irrespective of their status. However, some salient matters are curiously missing in the court of public opinion about SSU.

The swift disbandment of the SSU comes against the backdrop of the recent general election. Moreover, some of the cases to which the defunct unit has been linked are under investigation or active in court. Therefore, the jury is still out on whether or not the unit is culpable of the alleged crimes. That brings into question the thoroughness with which recent calls for police reforms were conceived.

Security sector reforms are a highly deliberative process that involves multiple stakeholders. Past reforms empirically attest to the methodological rigour with which they are carried out. They also underscore technical inputs that are critical for the short- and long-term objectives to be achieved.

After the 2002 General Election, which brought Narc to power, the Mwai Kibaki administration launched wide-scale security sector reforms under the Economic Recovery and Wealth Creation Strategy (2003) and the sector-wide Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector (GJLOS) programmes.

The Kenya Police Strategic Plan 2003-2007, an auxiliary to the 2003 economic recovery blueprint, emphasised the importance of accountability and the need for accountability mechanisms to ensure the NPS does not only play critical roles in crime prevention but also creates an enabling environment for socioeconomic development. Consequently, institutions such as Ipoa were created following a recommendation by the Ransley Task Force of 2009.

Fifteen years after the reforms, one would expect that allegations of police extrajudicial killings would be a thing of the past. This raises salient questions about the current ruckus about the SSU and whether or not the drastic reorganisation being pursued recognises any milestones in the implementation of some of the national security sector reforms.

Foremost, what kind of police service do Kenyans want? What philosophical embodiment do they want the NPS to operate in? And what pragmatic measures need to be put in place to reorient the national policing operational worldview? If these questions are not answered holistically, real and perceived public vexation with the police shall remain a perpetual problem in our polity.

Disregarding level-headedness in such calls as for reorganisation of the NPS is akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Successful police reforms are usually a work in process and must be inclusive.

Mr Mugwang’a, a communications consultant, is a member of the Crime Journalists Association of Kenya (CJAK). michael.mugwanga@gmail.com.