Interior Cabinet Secretary nominee Kithure Kindiki now says no Kenyan will have to pay to join the security forces.
Speaking before the parliamentary vetting committee on Tuesday, Kindiki pledged to make sure that Kenyans join security formations based on merit.
“With regard to recruitment I will do whatever it takes to ensure that no Kenyan pays for their child to be recruited within the police service, the prisons service and other formations under this ministry,” Kindiki said.
At the same time, he promised to fix the issue of mental health disturbance cases, something he said is prevalent within the Kenyan police forces.
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He said the ministry will introduce a wellness unit targeting mental welfare of officers within the service.
“I believe the issues around mental issues in the police service are linked to work-related stress”.
“I intend to equip, expand and fully capitalize the wellness and counselling unit which I intend to link with the soon to be established NPS hospital and the Kenya Prisons Service hospital,” he said
Moreover, Kindiki noted that a well equipped wellness counselling unit will prevent cases of a psychiatric nature and sometimes fatal accidents within the police forces.
Additionally, Kindiki promised to review police terms of service to address complains on harsh working conditions within the service.
“The Kenya Kwanza manifesto has vowed to review the terms of service for police officers and some of the complains officers make are actually right and justified,”
“We shall be looking on how we will handle that within the resource constraints of the country within the mandate of the Salaries Remuneration Commission but one way of achieving the non-benefits aspects of welfare is by reviewing the existing ministry’s budget to remove non co-expenditure and deploy it to facilitate officers.” he said.