Fuel shortage hurts police operations

Operations at the Criminal Investigations Department ground to a halt after a fuel provider withheld supplies demanding Sh11 million for previous deliveries.

As a result, a senior CID officer scheduled to travel to Nyeri for an investigation had to postpone the trip while other operations were put on hold. The Tuesday incident left teams of detectives in the operations section of the CID, who are usually given different assignments, in disarray as they were only allocated five litres of fuel for each vehicle.

Sources revealed that the supplier was on Wednesday morning convinced to deliver two days’ supply of fuel to the headquarters as plans were made to pay him. Senior police sources, who spoke to the Nation on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said that the fuel shortage was part of a larger problem affecting police operations in the country.

Despite the announcement by President Kibaki early this month that officers be paid the over Sh400 million transfer allowance in arrears since 2005, the Treasury has not allocated funds to the police. The President was speaking when he received the report on police reforms from the National Task Force on Police Reforms.

However, because the announcement was made after the budget estimates were read in Parliament, the department will have to wait until it is factored into the supplementary budget. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe admitted that the department was experiencing a shortage of resources. “For us to effectively implement the reforms recommended by the taskforce, we need more funds,” he said.

Other sources revealed that Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere had not been allocated any funds to implement immediate changes as has been the trend in the past whenever a new police boss is appointed. Mr Iteere has toured several police stations around the country to assess their capacity to respond to emergencies.

He toured Central and Kasarani police divisions on Wednesday and on Tuesday where he found out that even though the stations had few serviceable vehicles, they lacked working emergency telephone lines.