Police get shot in arm with Sh20bn budget increase
Administration Police officers march at a pass-out parade. FILE
What you need to know:
State has set aside more resources for security and justice departments.
The State has cranked up spending on law and order with the National Police Service’s budget allocation alone rising by an unprecedented Sh20 billion. The services will use Sh73.5 billion setting stage for massive expansion and re-equipping to deal with rising internal security threats.
In their campaign manifesto, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Jubilee Coalition partners indicated they planned to raise the police to citizen ratio from 1:1,150 to 1:800 with 15,000 policemen recruited annually.
Office of the Attorney-General and Department of Justice will also get a major boost at Sh4.95 billion in the 2013/14 financial year, the newly published Division of Revenue Bill, 2013 showed.
The allocation is almost triple the Sh1.8 billion the office was allocated the previous financial year, signalling a huge agenda of reform initiatives to be pursued by Prof Githu Muigai’s team.
A medium term expenditure plan presented to the Treasury for the period 2013/14– 2015/16 showed that the reduction of a backlog of more than 20,000 cases filed against the government and devolution of services to the 47 counties would be some of the key goals to be pursued by the State Law Office in the new fiscal year.
The AG’s office is also eyeing to conclude tasks such as the automation of functions such as the marriage registry.
“It is worth noting that the rule of law, justice and order remain a key driver for the economic growth,” the expenditure plan states in part. “The report has identified inadequate human resource capacity, financial constraints, institutional strengthening, implementation of the Constitution and civic education as some of the key issues to be addressed.”
The office has a big mandate including serving as principal legal adviser to the government, representing it in court or in any other legal proceedings to which it is a party and other criminal proceedings and undertaking civil litigation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution on behalf of the government.
The AG’s office also reviews and oversees legal matters pertaining to public trustee and administration of estates and trusts and negotiating, drafting and vetting of local and international instruments, treaties and agreements involving the government and its agencies, among other functions.
The Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is also set to receive a bigger allocation in the new fiscal window. The allocations to the office will more than double to Sh2.2 billion from the Sh972 million last financial year.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko said Wednesday his office would increase the number of prosecutors.
“Crime is becoming more sophisticated and we have to build our capacity both in term of expertise and number of personnel,” he told the Business Daily.
“We are planning to establish an academy of prosecutors so that we have specialised training for officers to be deployed to various stations.”
The office heavily relies on police to discharge its mandate amid concern they lacked adequate training to effectively perform the role.
“About 90 per cent of our prosecutors are currently from the police service and we want them to cross over so that we can have them retained for the specialised role of prosecutors,” the DPP said.
Mr Tobiko said his office would also devolve services the counties and automate operations for online linkage with the Judiciary and police.
“We already have presence in 29 counties and we need to have a footprint in all the remaining ones. We will then have virtual connections with agencies we closely work with to improve our functions,” he said.
