Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has highlighted the urgent need for continuous police training reforms, saying many officers do not receive refresher courses after their initial recruitment.
Speaking to the Senate Plenary on Wednesday, Murkomen emphasized that proper and regular training is key to reducing incidents of police brutality during public gatherings.
Murkomen said the National Police Service has launched regional programs focusing on human rights and modern crowd management techniques. “One of the interventions of police brutality in public gatherings and public meetings is to make sure that our police officers are properly trained,” he said, noting that last year’s Jukwaa la Usalama forum revealed major gaps in officer preparedness.
He added that most police officers are trained only once in their lifetime, at the point of recruitment. Highlighting the scale of the problem, Murkomen disclosed that some VIP protection officers had gone 10 to 20 years without any refresher training.
“Some of you are having bodyguards who have never gone for training for the last 10, 15, 20 years… They have never fired even one bullet anywhere,” he said.
The CS praised the Parliamentary Service Commission for advocating retraining of VIP protection officers and stressed that continuous training is critical.
He said the police service has now reorganized its approach by introducing regional training frameworks aimed at equipping officers regularly on human rights, constitutional standards, and crowd control.
“At the moment, I want to report to the country that we are undertaking training for police officers to be ready to manage crowds differently, and that training is ongoing now,” Murkomen said, adding that officers are being prepared in contingents for deployment at public events, including protests and official gatherings.
However, Murkomen stressed that policing alone cannot end public violence. “The best remedy is in this House. It is with the members of Parliament. It is with our leaders,” he said, arguing that responsible politics would reduce the need for heavy police presence.
The Interior CS also warned about a rising trend where politicians allegedly hire “goons or gangs” to attend political events, describing it as “an existential threat to national security.” He noted that hooliganism, once mostly limited to major urban centers, has now spread across the country, affecting even rural areas.
“If we change the way we do our politics, we will not need to deploy a single police officer,” Murkomen said, urging leaders from all political parties to take responsibility in preventing violence during campaigns.
