PRESS STATEMENT BY HIS EXCELLENCY HON.

UHURU
KENYATTA, C.G.H., PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
OF THE DEFENCE FORCES OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA ON
16
TH
MAY 2014 AT STATE HOUSE NAIROBI
Good afternoon, Ladies and gentlemen,
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
The constitution reminds us that the authority assigned a public
ofcer is a public trust. Public authority is not a personal possession;
it is a grant of power, regulated by law, to serve the best interests of
Kenyans. lways, it must be e!ercised in conformity with the
constitutional values we chose for ourselves" e#uity and efciency,
accountability and impartiality.
$e must do better when it comes to relations between the two
levels of government. The confusion and confrontation we see
wastes time and resources better spent elsewhere. $e have not
achieved the efcient public integration between national and local
government that our constitution demands.
That is why % directed the national administration to ta&e up the
functions of national government at the county level. 'ounty
commissioners, as &ey representatives of my ofce, will coordinate
all national government functions at the county level. The
arrangement mirrors the management of the public service at the
national level.
That is not to say that % have not ceded control at the centre. % have
delegated the functions for efcient, reliable and better service
delivery. $e have a mandate to serve the public in a way that
respects the resources available to us. The move % too& yesterday is
about (lling the service delivery gap.
$hat we have done is no di)erent from what the county*level
governments have been doing. Governors have felt that they
needed county administrators in their areas to deliver the services
which national government is mandated to provide. 'onse#uently, %t
would be hypocritical to claim that the national government does
not need administrators to enure that its fucntions at the grassroots
are properly carried out. $e are not (ghting for control, we are not
pre*occupied with control. +either should others be. $e should all
be concerned with the priorities as outlined by the constitution.
SECURITY
,arlier this wee&, some of our foreign partners issued travel
advisories. These only cover speci(c parts of the country, not the
whole of it. +onetheless, they give a misleading picture of our
security situation, and they run the ris& of inadvertently damaging
our security. The misunderstanding and ris& could have been
avoided if the governments concerned had consulted more closely
with us.
The fact of the matter is that the measures we introduced have
begun to ma&e a di)erence.
-irst, the security operation that we begun over a month ago will
continue, as we loo& to isolate the e!tremists and those who aid
them. The operation has already removed thousands of illegal
immigrants, and severely disrupted the networ&s of information and
money which support radicalisation and violence.
.econd, my government has entered a (ve*year contract with
.afaricom to provide communications and surveillance e#uipment
for our disciplined services. %n time, the new security system will be
in constant communication with the national command centre that
has already been set up. There will be a continuous interaction and
e!change of data between the command centre and our men and
women on the ground.
The agreement with .afaricom also allows us to deploy around
/,000 ''T1 cameras in locations around +airobi and 2ombasa 3 the
two towns which have been hardest hit by the terrorists.
s before, we continue to raise the numbers of security personnel.
%n the last two months, about 4400 new recruits have graduated
into the various branches of our national police service. This is in
line with the commitment we made earlier. Kenyans can e!pect to
see at least ten thousand new ofcers a year for the ne!t four years.
Let me also pause to rebut an unfortunate report that has recently
appeared in the news. %t was argued, in some of the dailies, that the
nti*Terorrist Police 5nit had received only /6 million shillings in this
year7s budget. This is a deep misunderstanding of the nature of
security funding. -irst, the /6 million shillings covers the ofce
operations of the unit. .econd, the overall security budget provides
for e#uipment and information that are shared across services, for
the sa&e of economy. -or e!ample, our surveillance aircraft are
available to the TP5, as well as to other security services.
The report badly misidenti(es the resources available to the TP5;
the mista&e could have been avoided by simply consulting the
relevant authorities for e!planation.