Police housing a great idea but they mustn’t forced into slums

Residential blocks at Nakuru’s Kasarani police lines. Officers living here have complained of poor housing conditions and lack of water and electricity. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • It thus defeats reason why we in Kenya should treat our officers as a necessary evil instead of giving them the respect they deserve.

  • For too long, the men and women on whom we depend to maintain law and order have been neglected.

  • Many of them, especially in far-flung regions, have been living in squalid hovels, often overcrowded and without amenities.

As a young man, I joined the then famous Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. It was an inauspicious time to live and study in that country, for it was around the time the great buffoon, Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, had just seized power from Milton Obote. Unfortunately, one of the first things he did was to destroy the country’s police force and order bands of army men to take over patrol duties in the city streets. As a result, not only did random killings become rampant, many of the innocent victims were police officers. By the time he succeeded in destroying Uganda’s fledgling economy, this great country had turned into a lawless wasteland. In retrospect, the lesson is clear: hate them or love them, the police are absolutely vital to the running of any country, for a nation without an efficient police force is doomed. There is something infinitely worse than living in a police state, and that is living in a state without police.

SQUALID HOVELS

It thus defeats reason why we in Kenya should treat our officers as a necessary evil instead of giving them the respect they deserve. For too long, the men and women on whom we depend to maintain law and order have been neglected. Many of them, especially in far-flung regions, have been living in squalid hovels, often overcrowded and without the amenities that would make them live in dignity, something we often take for granted. There is nothing as bad as losing all privacy, having to share every private moment with total strangers, and then being expected to perform onerous, oftentimes dangerous duties without complaint.

Is it any wonder that some officers turn rogue while others descend into acute depression and gun down their colleagues or seniors? Is it any wonder that some have no qualms whatsoever about demanding or receiving bribes from notorious criminals to look the other way? Much too often, officialdom has tended to pretend that nothing was amiss, and even sometimes echoed the common ignoramuses in condemning all police officers as brutal and corrupt. Obviously, many are, but that is no reason to consign them all to a life of misery.

REVOLUTIONARY

That is why many people applauded when, a while back, a new housing policy was announced for police officers. During the initial announcement back in September, the officers were to receive hefty house allowances so that they could seek their own accommodation away from police lines. This is not a new concept in many parts of the world, but it is nothing short of revolutionary in this country. Without going into the numbers, the allowances promised would have made it possible for the officers to live in decent neighbourhoods.

But alas, that notion was scuttled on a technicality, and the allowances offered heavily slashed. Commuter allowances have now been added, but it all adds up to much lower figures. For instance, if earlier reports were correct, a police constable in Nairobi would have got Sh18,124 in house allowance. Not anymore. Now the officer will get Sh9,500 with an extra Sh3,000 as commuter allowance. Although this should lead to a great improvement on the kind of housing many were used to, it is hardly enough. Being forced to rent a bedsitter in a slum is not really conducive to great performance at work.

GENERALISATIONS

My point is that the government should take measures to subsidise further accommodation for the 70,000 junior officers affected since they are not allowed by law to agitate for higher pay or to seek judicial intervention restoring the allowances they had been promised. All the same, this is a great step forward though it is easy to foresee many problems once the measures start being implemented in the next 16 days. One can only hope that someone in government is working round the clock to iron them out.

***

Mea culpa: Last week in this column, I made a mistake common with people who do not see any other side to an argument. I tarred all our legislators with the same brush — as congenitally corrupt. In short, I fell into the trap of faulty generalisation, thereby tarnishing the reputation of tens of honourable men and women whose ruling passion is not greed. Many arguments are ruined by the fallacy of generalisation based on weak premises. It has been taken as a given that all legislators must be rapacious because some among them keep agitating for higher pay and perquisites.

But isn’t it possible that many choose to keep quiet to avoid being labelled spoilers? Nobody, but the very brave, likes to be ostracised by his or her peers. This is not to excuse anyone, however. Those whose aim is to offer selfless service and not merely to enrich themselves should speak out often because that is the only way to adequately represent the people who elected them. True legislators should not be confused with the loudmouths whose behaviour makes them all to be compared to a gluttonous domestic animal of note. It is not fair.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor ([email protected])