•Stealing a carcass, if bill sails through, will land suspects in jail.
•The proposed changes to the Penal Code are due for first reading.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Cattle thieves could soon get a death penalty following a proposal by a lawmaker aimed at reducing the rampant rustling experienced in most parts of the country.
Kitui East MP Nimrod Mbai has proposed amendments to the Penal Code to provide that a person found guilty of stealing livestock be sentenced to death.
“A person who steals livestock commits an offence and shall be sentenced to death upon conviction,” the bill reads.
In the proposal, livestock has been defined to mean male, female or young one of a donkey, bull, camel, cow, ewe, gelding, goat, ram, horse, mare, mule, ox, ostrich and pig.
Mbai has also sought that persons who steal livestock produce be liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than 15 years.
Produce, as per the bill, would include whole or part of any skin, horn, or carcass of livestock and includes wool, mohair and ostrich feathers.
Further punishment awaits persons found handling stolen livestock or livestock produce in the bill published on September 15.
“A person who receives livestock or livestock produce, knowing or having reason to believe it to be stolen, commits an offence and shall upon conviction be liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than 15 years,” the proposed law states.
Mbai said he aims to end the disruption of economic and livelihood activities posed by cattle rustling, which is rampant in most parts of Rift Valley and Northeastern.
“The proposed amendments seek to remedy the disruption of the socio-economic activities and livelihood of pastoralist communities who reside in regions where the vice is rampant,” the lawmaker said in the bill's memorandum.
The existing law hands 14 years in jail for persons convicted of cattle theft, punishment which the lawmaker says has failed to tame rustlers.
Eight people, among them three police officers, died last month following sprawling bandit attacks in Laikipia County.
Police said they arrested four suspects in connection with the attacks among them an MP but no convictions have been realized so far.
Anti-transnational crimes lobby ENACT (Enhancing Africa’s response to transnational crime) said in a December 2019 report that cattle rustling could be thriving because national laws do not criminalize the practice.
“Whereas it is arguable that criminalizing cattle rustling may only shift the attention of would-be perpetrators to other forms of crime, it is equally possible that it will, to some extent, deter them altogether,” the report reads.
The experts hold that criminalization of cattle theft should thus be considered alongside other interventions.
“Implementation of laws could be facilitated by technological strategies like electronic branding and online registration.”
The team further advised that governments should have control over livestock markets where state-issued livestock permits are exchanged between buyers and sellers –like is the case of logbooks in vehicle purchases, adding that it would improve tax earnings in the long run.
In 2018, the National Assembly passed a motion that sought to declare cattle rustling a national disaster and to pave way for compensation of victims.
The motion sought that the government establishes a special fund to compensate and resettle all victims across the country.
The report of the motion by Baringo North MP William Cheptumo is yet to be implemented by the Interior ministry.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission in a 2011 report stated that communities where cattle theft is rampant consider the same as a cultural practice.