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NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 10 – The National Treasury on Thursday allocated a whooping Sh294.5 billion to the country’s security agencies, in the budget estimates for the financial year 2021 to 2022.
The amount allocated in the Sh3.4 trillion national budget will be shared among the National Police Service, Defence Forces, and the National Intelligence Service.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani said Sh119.8 billion will be allocated for Defence, Sh42.5 billion for the NIS, and Sh110.6 billion for policing and prison services.
“Enough national security will create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive while aiding faster economic recovery,” the CS said when he read the budget estimates in the National Assembly.
Some Sh1 billion was set aside for the police modernization programme.
Other allocations include Sh4.8 billion for medical insurance for police and prison officers and Sh2.3 billion for the group personal insurance for both services.
Further, he allocated Sh1 billion for the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) under which the government is rolling Huduma Namba, a digital identification card plan.
To enhance the war on crime, the Treasury Cabinet Secretary allocated Sh1.5 billion for the National Communication and Surveillance System and Sh335 million that will be used to equip the national forensic laboratory based at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters.
Once equipped, the laboratory will greatly help to unravel some of the sophisticated homicide crimes in the country.
Why is the laboratory important in the war against crime?
The most important aspect of criminal justice is forensic science or the practice of scientifically examining physical evidence collected from the scene of a crime or a person of interest in a crime.
The laboratory is crucial for the identification of unrecognizable human remains often found in rivers often having decayed.
Forensic scientists use DNA from the body, do dental checks and even study the skeletal structure to determine the identify of the victim.
It can also help in identifying the gender as well as the cause of death and whether foul play was involved.
Two of the most common crimes that are determined in forensic science laboratories are drug-related and sex crimes.
It is in the crime lab that the chemical makeup of an unidentified substance recovered from a suspect is determined to be cocaine, marijuana, or other controlled substances.
This can be used as evidence in court to prove that a person was in possession of illegal drugs.
The laboratory would also be used to identify a cybercrime culprit.
Databases are searched, IP addresses are tracked and documents are recovered by computer forensic specialists to determine who was responsible for a certain crime.
The construction of the multi-million shillings laboratory ended in January 2019.
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