Some 142 police officers have been killed in the line of duty in the past eight years, according to a monument unveiled yesterday by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i.
The commemorative monument is at the Administration Police Training College in Embakasi.
The Kenya Police Service Unit alone lost 75 officers between 2012 to 2019 while the Administration Police unit lost 52 officers and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation 10. The Prisons department lost five officers.
There were no details on how the officers met their death.
The occasion was attended by 210 widows and widowers of the officers. The top command of the Police Service was also present.
Glaringly missing in the commemorative plaque are the names of 42 officers killed in the notorious Kapedo and Suguta valley in 2012. They were killed by bandits and cattle rustlers.
The names of 11 APs who perished recently when their vehicle hit an IED and landmines in Mandera are also not in the plaque of honour.
Some officers were overheard asking why their colleagues' names were missing.
"Why is my brother not included here yet he was killed on duty at Kibera in August this year?" a female officer asked.
The Interior CS warned that he is ready to cancel insurance contracts of companies covering police officers but complicated the compensation of the officers' families.
Matiang'i said: "The contracts will be promptly cancelled next week if I find their performance wanting."
This was prompted by the pleas of Pudent Sina Latifa, the widow of one of the officers killed in the line of duty.
Latifa, who spoke on behalf of the bereaved families, said they are frustrated seeking the compensation and benefits from the Police Service.
"Some of the widows were left young and jobless or with infants. The delay in the compensation have left the families in abject poverty," she said.
Latifa, who is from Taita Taveta and whose GSU officer husband Benson Mwadime was killed after 33 years of services said: "Some of us have had to borrow money to travel to Nairobi every time to follow on these compensations only to be turned back to come back another day. It is really frustrating."
Some of the bereft families are wallowing in debts, hoping to pay them after they are compensated, she added.
Matiang'i regretted the inefficiencies and ordered the National Police Service Commission chairman Eliud Kinuthia to appraise him on the assessment of the performance of the companies covering the officers.
"I hope the chairman will bring me the performance report of the companies. I will not sit in a meeting lamenting the inefficiencies again. We must ensure that the widows of those who've given their lives to our country are well cared for," he said.
(Edited by V. Graham)
