Former Chief Justice David Maraga has released a long-awaited report on Kenya’s security services, nearly three years after handing it to President William Ruto.
Maraga made the document public on Monday after the President failed to release it following a seven-day ultimatum issued earlier this month.
Speaking at the United Green Movement (UGM) party headquarters, Maraga said the report should no longer remain out of public view. He had argued that it was prepared using public resources and that Kenyans were entitled to access it.
The report was produced by a taskforce chaired by Maraga and submitted to Mr Ruto on November 16, 2023. Its mandate covered the National Police Service, Kenya Prisons Service and National Youth Service.
Maraga had warned on August 18 that he would release the report himself if the President did not publish it within seven days.
“I demand that you immediately release and publish the complete and unedited Taskforce Report within seven days, failing which I will myself release it,” he said in his letter to President.
The deadline passed without the full report being published by the government. Maraga subsequently made the document available to the public on Monday.
A call to restore police independence
At the centre of the report is a concern that Kenya’s police service has not been sufficiently protected from political influence.
The taskforce called for changes to the way senior police leaders are recruited and appointed. It also recommended measures intended to strengthen the independence and accountability of the National Police Service.
Among the proposals are reforms to recruitment, promotion and leadership within the service. The report also addresses the welfare and working conditions of officers, including pay, housing and healthcare. (Citizen)
Maraga said the recommendations had remained largely unimplemented since the report was handed to the President.
He has linked the failure to implement the reforms to wider concerns about police brutality, impunity and political interference.
In his August letter, he warned that Kenya risked returning to a past in which security institutions were drawn into political battles.
“This is a road the country has travelled before at terrible cost. It must not travel it again,” he said.
Senior police leadership questioned
During Monday’s address, Maraga also questioned the continued tenure of senior police officials who, he said, had reached the mandatory retirement age.
He singled out Inspector General Douglas Kanja and Directorate of Criminal Investigations chief Mohamed Amin, arguing that their continued stay in office raised questions about compliance with retirement rules.
Maraga called for the relevant positions to be advertised and filled through a competitive process. (Citizen)
Those claims are part of Maraga’s broader argument that police leadership must be insulated from political considerations and subject to clear legal and institutional rules.
The report and the politics around it
The release comes as Kenya approaches another politically charged period, with questions about policing and political violence again drawing public attention.
Maraga has previously pointed to violence in Homa Bay, Keumbu and Ol Kalou, as well as incidents reported at churches in Kisumu, Nairobi and Witima, as examples of the pressures facing the country’s security institutions.
The government has not, in the reports reviewed, indicated that it accepts Maraga’s characterisation of the police service as being politically captured.
President Ruto had earlier received the taskforce’s interim report and endorsed several recommendations, including new entry points into the police service and changes to officer transfers. The government has therefore taken some steps based on the taskforce’s work, although Maraga says much of the wider reform agenda remains outstanding.
The report contains more than 200 recommendations covering policing, prisons and the National Youth Service. Among them are proposals touching on police leadership, recruitment, remuneration, training, welfare and institutional independence.
For Maraga, however, the central issue is bigger than any individual recommendation.
He argues that the country cannot build public confidence in its security institutions without confronting political interference and holding leaders to the same rules that govern other public officials.
The publication of the report now puts its recommendations in the public domain. The question shifts to whether the government will act on them and how quickly.
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