NO CORRUPTION IN 100 DAYS

The Internal Security Ministry has announced an ambitious plan to rid itself of corruption within 100 days.

It will crack harder on drug barons, cattle rustlers, highway bandits, carjackers and other criminals as part of the programme.

"We want to reduce corruption by 100 per cent in the next 100 days," a tough-talking Internal Security minister George Saitoti told senior officials of his ministry who included Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere and Provincial Commissioners during a breakfast meeting Thursday.

He directed that unnecessary road blocks set up by the police be removed with immediate effect, and that the war on bootleg liquor is stepped up.

"We have to get rid of this problem that has tarnished our image internationally," Prof Saitoti told his officers.

According to the United Nation Office of Drugs and Crime, Mombasa port is a key route used by international drug cartels to bring narcotics, mostly heroin, into the country.

Prof Saitoti has also appealed to members of the public and those running private companies to desist from giving bribes in return for favours from public officials.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere told the minister that roadblocks had been reduced to just 34 across the country, the number deemed necessary by Vigilance House to keep crime in check.

Mr Iteere also reported that crime had reduced countrywide by 15 per cent in the last three months based on the comparison between the number of cases reported to the police in the same period last year.

"We're also working to eradicate the new wave of carjackings where motorists are waylaid at their gates," Mr Iteere said.

He spoke as news filtered in that a driver to Assistant minister Lewis Nguyai was shot dead on Wednesday night shortly after he dropping off the Kikuyu MP home.

As part of the plan, all district commissioners have been supplied with computers which will soon be interconnected, the minister said.

"Additionally, the capacity of the government printer has been increased by 50 per cent following the activation of the new security press," said Prof Saitoti.

"We can now be able to print all government documents, including those that require special security features, without having to go out to the market."

The minister spoke under the cloud of allegations of corruption, high staff turnover and low morale at the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, which falls under his ministry.

The agency's national coordinator Jeniffer Kimani has dismissed the allegations as the work of a few disgruntled employees and maintained that the institution was at its best.

28 staff have left Nacadaa in the past two years, most after having been fired for various reasons.

Those who have left accuse Mrs Kimani of high-handedness.

Mrs Kimani told the Nation in a past interview she only makes decisions on the instructions of the board and all she has done has been authorised by the directors.

The staff subsequently sent her an email at the start of the year, which they also copied to Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, the office of the Ombudsman and the organisation’s board of governors.

Among the allegations levelled against Ms Kimani were that there had been impropriety in office acquisition at Karen, Nairobi in November 2008, which remains unoccupied.

The email authors said they had been prevented from sitting examinations they had studied for and prepared to sit via an office memorandum banning them from undertaking studies while working.

Nacada chairman Frank Njenga said late January his board was investigating the allegations made against Ms Kimani.

On Thursday, the agency reported at the minister's breakfast that it had reached 40 per cent of all schools in the campaign against drugs.

As part of the efforts, the minister said, all the 8,000 chiefs have been retrained and the curriculum for retraining all Dos, DCs and PCs was ready.

Half of the chiefs have received extra legal and paramilitary training to better equip them serve in their areas, the minister said.

In the last five years, the minister said, the Provincial Administration had sent packing some 1,500 "non-performing, undisciplined and unethical chiefs, assistant chiefs and administrative officers."

Additionally, the government has introduced a register of all police officers sacked from the service to deter them from engaging in crime and reached out to those who have retired to lend a hand in improving security in their area, the minister said.

The minister said that the powers of the Police Commissioner had been considerably devolved to the provincial police officers and district police chiefs but warned that they must be accountable for such responsibility.

"I would also want it known that police officers who break the law will be dealt with just like ordinary citizens," Prof Saitoti said.