October 19, 2014 - Today's News In Gazetikenya

Completion Date December 2014

National Youth to take over traffic police role

NATIONAL SERVICE | Keeping the youth in active engagement

Nearly 2,500 National Youth Service (NYS) graduates will soon relieve the police of some roles, a move that would allow the overstretched National Police Service to concentrate on core duties of fighting crime. Once in place, police officers attached to VIPs as drivers will be redeployed and their places taken over by specially trained youth. Police officers who control traffic flow in Nairobi will also give way to youth service graduates, but a thin number of police officers will be retained on the roads to enforce traffic laws. Other officers attached to government departments as sentries and messengers will also be recalled and assigned core duties like conducting patrols and pursuing criminals. The changes are part of an ambitious plan rolled out by the Devolution ministry, which largely aims to transform the youth service.

A framework to guide the transformation, seen by the Sunday Nation, says a Public Security Unit will be formed, comprising 1,280 youths who will receive special training in VIP protection. “This number is arrived at from the list of officially listed VIPs at the level of ‘two-down’ in the country. This unit should be used to secure non-strategic government installations and VIP driving. A conversion training module should be conducted by the Kenya Defence Forces and the Kenya Police Service for this brigade-plus,” according to the document. Then there is the Traffic Control Unit comprising 1,215 youth. These recommendations are in line with the Justice Philip Ransley task force on police reforms which in 2009 proposed that the police to population ratio should be reduced to 1:400 as per international standards.

At present, the ratio is 1:850 and freeing officers who are not doing core duties would greatly increase police presence in the field. The Ransley report, which the government adopted as the official reforms blueprint, said: “All police officers performing non-core functions should be redeployed to boost police visibility. Consideration should be given to the use of private security providers and the National Youth Service in non-core functions.” But before the youth assume some of these duties, they will be retrained by the police and military, befitting their new roles.

The document says: “As the drivers are already trained by the National Youth Service, they will receive a two-month conversion course at Gilgil with the drivers training running simultaneously for the period. The conversion course is supported by the military and includes arms training and other military manoeuvres. The components of the course will include defencedriving techniques, VIP protocol and interaction, discretion, convoy manoeuvres and personal turn-out. From an average of 3,000 to 5,000 officers assigned to VIP protection before last year’s General Election, the number has shot up to almost 10,000. The VIPs include cabinet secretaries, principal secretaries, senators, MPs, governors, parastatal chiefs, judges, commissioners and some celebrities.

However, top government officials deemed to face a higher security threat will retain their police guards. “The goal in the public security component of national service is to make it the premier choice for professional, disciplined and military trained drivers for government and private sector VIPs and guards. The VIP drivers will be drawn from the ex-youth service /dischargees trained as drivers. The service can recruit from the ‘group of excellence’; those that graduated from driving school with A and B grades,” the National Youth Service plan says. To manage traffic, the plan divides Nairobi into 12 zones where the youth service graduates will be deployed. Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru has intensified countrywide deployment of the youth service graduates to undertake short-term jobs at the county and national governments.

Gazeti Kenya

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