Nairobi News

Confiscate weapons. Everything that is wrong with the deteriorating county security was revealed by Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo’s denial that there are illegal gun armouries in slums only for journalists to buy one, said David Ng’etich.

“If Kimaiyo does not know where county criminals are storing their increasingly sophisticated weapons, how can he be expected to protect us?” asked Ng’etich. He said going by the story Sandal of guns for hire published by this paper, it was clear that journalists were better at gathering security intelligence than Mr Kimaiyo. The only way the police chief could avoid more humiliation was by marshalling his officers to mount a campaign to confiscate the weapons from the criminals. “Otherwise he should step aside and let someone else take over,” he said.

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Impressed. Nancy Odeny said she was impressed by the fact that someone had empathised with working mothers forced to bear the risk of hiring house helps who may turn out to be kidnappers. “Now with Darubini Screening which can tell the criminal history of a potential worker by scanning fingerprints, we don’t have to worry ourselves sick,” said the mother of a one-year-old boy. She added that employment agencies could not be trusted to vet the women who flock to their offices.

“Only a week ago a mother came home to find her 10-month-old baby suffocating with a plastic bag wrapped over her head. The crazy house help had just left with her electronics,” she said adding that no follow-up was possible because it was discovered she had provided fake identification documents.

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Educate public. Martha Nyaboke said the Kenya Bureau of Standards had failed women suffering after using sub-standard body image enhancing products. “These products sold from an outlet on River Road should not be in circulation if the agency did its work,” she said. That the cancer causing pills, gels and injections were sold openly, she said showed that KBS had not conducted a crackdown.

“The alternative possibility is that the agency’s officers are aware of the circulation of the harmful products and are somehow benefiting from it,” she said, noting that that was an even more disturbing thought. She called for a campaign to educate the public on the dangers of the products.

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Liable for deaths. At some point it becomes necessary to take decisive action against cartels whose activities endangered people’s lives, said Evans Oyuga. He was referring to the report that 14 people were reported dead in electrocution cases caused by faulty electricity connections by cartels in slums.

“It is not enough for Kenya Power to identify the slums where criminals are making money by selling electricity. The company must root them out and remove the connections,” said Oyuga. He added that he was not convinced that the company was as powerless to stamp out the armed cartels as its officers claimed. “The company should be held liable for any death caused by the cartels it has chosen to ignore,” said Oyuga.

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