Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki on Thursday, September 26, highlighted the key infrastructural challenges security agencies in Kenya are currently facing.
Kindiki, while appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Administration and Internal Security, confirmed that the National Police Service (NPS) was reeling under a deficit of vehicles in police stations, which featured among the biggest issues hampering police from adequately conducting their mandate.
According to Kindiki, "About half of the police stations in the country do not have vehicles."
If the CS's projections are accurate, then it means that at least 1500 police stations in the country operate without vehicles.
During his appearance at the committee, Kindiki also admitted that there were inadequate National Police Reserve (NPRs), saying the government was working on adding more NPRs.
It was observed that several counties, including Marsabit, Wajir and Tana River, had a deficit in terms of personnel in the police force.
"The long-term measure is to have police secure the country. But at the moment, as a short-term measure, we will try to continue enhancing the capacity of NPRs," the CS added.
Kindiki's claim on the lack of police vehicles came barely two weeks after he made a Ksh3 million donation to the newly built Kihara Police Station in Kiambaa Constituency, although none of the funds went towards purchasing vehicles.
Ksh2 million was used to equip the station with furniture while the remaining Ksh1 million was dedicated to buying computers for the station, which was built by the Kiambaa Constituency Development Fund.
A lack of police vehicles is not the only issue facing police stations in the country. In January 2024, Auditor General Nancy Gathungu observed that only 464 of the 3,000 parcels of police land in the country had ownership documents - a predicament that exposes land occupied by police stations to encroachment.
“The title documents for other parcels of land were said to be in the custody of the National Treasury but their details were not provided for audit,” a report from the Auditor General stated.
In addition, it was found that 49 gazetted police stations and nine Coast Guard field stations operated without funding and were heavily reliant on sister stations to fund daily expenditures.
