Kenyans, Police To Get Cash Rewards For Helping Govt Expose Bandits- CS Kindiki

Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kithure Kindiki has announced that the government will offer financial rewards to Kenyans as well as police officers who will assist in the arrest of key planners of banditry attacks.

The CS issued a statement on the matter on Friday, December 29 after he visited Posta in Laikipia County where he handed over heads of cattle that had been stolen and recovered in full.

Regional, County and local security heads, officers, area political leaders and members of the public were present.

He also rewarded security officers, local leaders and youth whose collaborative efforts realised the recovery of the cattle heads.

Interior CS Kithure Kindiki inspecting cattle that had been stolen at Posta, Laikipia County on December 29, 2023. /KITHURE KINDIKI

Furthermore, the CS revealed that the government would publish the identities of the banditry planners across the country in 2024.

"Going forward, the Government through the Interior Ministry will run a program to financially reward gallant officers and members of the public whose efforts will result in the arrest of the key planners, executors and enablers of banditry whose profiles will be published countrywide in the new year," he stated, without immediately revealing the financial reward.

According to Kindiki, cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organised criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, destitution and displacement. 

"Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities of their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fuelling communal grievances and revenge attacks," he added.

To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators, the CS announced that the government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries. 

The plans come a day after Kindiki announced an extension of a curfew order under the ongoing Maliza Uhalifu Operation aimed at comprehensively dealing with bandits to three counties.

The operation which commenced on February 14, 2023, was extended into parts of Meru, Isiolo and Marsabit Counties.

"New areas in the Northern Grazing Area in Meru North, parts of Isiolo and Marsabit Counties and the remaining banditry hotspots in Samburu County will shortly come under curfew and emergency measures to facilitate the flushing out of bandits and recovery of stolen livestock.

"Additional areas will be gazetted as 'Disturbed and Dangerous' as the Operation assumes its third phase," announced the CS on Thursday, December 28.

On Boxing Day (December 26), Kindiki revealed that the incidents of banditry and its debilitating effects on the people of the Northern Rift Valley Region were contained by 70%.