Gachagua: Govt To Replace Cops With NYS At Govt Offices

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has opened up on a plan by President William Ruto's government to replace police officers with officers from the National Youth Service in protecting key establishments.

Speaking on Thursday, December 15 during the opening of the 2022 Nation-Huawei Job Fair at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, Gachagua hinted at deploying police officers to areas across the country affected by banditry and crime.

He added that the disciplined officers will be deployed to protect the government offices and will be paid for conducting their duties.

“Going forward, we want to have a discussion with government ministries, parastatals and other corporations to have a concrete plan on how to remove our officers from the security forces to go and deal with crime, so we can have NYS personnel man those offices at a fee,” said the DP.

Gachagua believed that the officers from the National Police Service (NPS) should be deployed to solve more serious issues affecting the country such as bandits and criminals harming innocent Kenyans and that NYS officers are disciplined enough for crowd control within the buildings.

“It shouldn’t be free so that we can create a revolving fund to train more people. That is a conversation we want to have. We want our officers from the National Police Service to go and fight bandits and criminals, and the NYS personnel, because they are disciplined, they can do most of the work in terms of controlling people coming in and out of buildings,” he said.

He noted that the plan “has been there but nobody has really followed it up properly so that it becomes an official government policy.”

“We want to have a conversation about payment because we don’t want them to offer a free service so that the money can be invested within the service to train more people,” he added.

NYS officers were deployed in 2015 at Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) offices as well as Huduma Centres countrywide as part of a plan by the government to utilise the personnel in the protection of major installations that had been under private security.

The youth service at the time said the move was to ensure that the trainees' talents do not go to waste after leaving the service.

NYS personnel were tasked with services such as ticketing and crowd control at public events, security for private corporations, as well as selected government agencies such as the Kenya Ferry Service (KFS), Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and airports.

If the plans by President Ruto are successful, the police officers would complement chiefs and assistant chiefs in areas affected by banditry following an announcement by Interior Cabinet Secretary Prof. Kithure Kindiki that they will be furnished with firearms.