Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki says the government through the Interior Ministry will run a program to financially reward security officers and members of the public whose efforts will result in the arrest of key planners, executors and enablers of banditry.
He said the strategic move is aimed at incentivizing the ongoing war against livestock rustling and other related crimes.
The CS also revealed that the profiles of perpetrators of banditry, their ring leaders and financiers, as well as the profiteers of the criminal network will be made public in 2024.
Speaking in Posta, Laikipia County Friday, the CS noted that cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organised criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, destitution and displacement.
“Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fuelling communal grievances and revenge attacks,” he said.
“To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators, the Government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries, “he added.
During the handover of heads of cattle that had been stolen and recovered in full, the CS also rewarded local leaders and youth who worked with the government to ensure the cattle had been recovered
