Chief Justice Martha Koome has proposed new digital measures for the National Police Service aimed at enhancing efficiency and improving service delivery.
Koome was speaking during the ongoing National Council on the Administration of Justice (NCAJ) meeting in Mombasa on February 28, 2024.
Agencies under NCAJ agreed to support the National Police Service to digitize its operations to enhance efficiency in the justice sector.
Among the processes earmarked for digitization is the Occurrence Book (OB) at police stations, charge sheets, cash bail records and the operationalization of instant traffic fines.
CJ Koome noted that the police service has not kept up with other agencies in using technology to improve service delivery and create inter-operability with existing systems.
She further pointed out that the Judiciary of Kenya no longer deals with cash at any level, saying that there is need to help the NPS digitize its operations including cash bail, to foster effectiveness.
Koome on Digitization of Services
Koome asked Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome, Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) head Mohammed Amin and other members of the council to come up with their IT needs for presentation at an upcoming meeting with development partners to fund such initiatives.
IG Koome told the meeting that he receives complaints from the public about handling of their cash bail at police stations.
He said that although some efforts have been made towards digitization, much is yet to be done, citing the urgency to digitize OB.
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The council also noted that there is need to come up with an application that will facilitate receiving of cash bail and traffic fines.
The NCAJ meeting resolved to support digitization of the OB as a priority area.
This move by the NCAJ is in line with the council’s communique released earlier that resolved to digitize and automate processes within its institutions to enhance efficiency, accountability and seamless service delivery to the public.
In the communique, the NCAJ Council also committed to collaborate to automate instant traffic fines to ease backlog and root out abuse of process within the justice sector.
They resolved to mobilize adequate resources to sustain the efforts to support the fight against corruption, enhanced accountability and efficient service delivery.
Police OBs
Plans of digitizing National Police services can be dated back to 2019 where NPS launched its first ever digital Occurrence Books.
The first OB entry was made in January 2018 at the Kasarani Police Station, marking what seemed like a departure from manual to digital entries.
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This move also included police officers migrating all their personnel records to a digital platform.
Former IG of police Hillary Mutyambai during the unveiling said that the digital system was to ensure that all entries made were on permanent record and could not be edited.
The digital OB was part of the government’s policy to digitize service delivery for Kenyans.
Fast forward in June 2023, President William Ruto’s government followed in the footsteps as the digitized OB was included in the government’s transition plan of incorporating over 5,000 services online.
The Ministry of Interior and National Administration, in a statement said the OBs had been digitized in a bid to ease reporting and recording of crimes.
However, the introduction of the digitized OBs has not yet been fully incorporated into function as NPS officers still use manual OBs.
