KENYAN President Uhuru Kenyatta has ordered the police to arrest and press treason charges against anyone caught vandalising national infrastructure projects.
According to local media, the president was speaking on Thursday, January 20, at the National Police College Main Campus, Kiganjo in Nyeri County.
While addressing 300 police cadet graduates at the Kenya Police Training College in Kiganjo, Kenyatta also banned, with immediate effect, trade on scrap metal, directing that anyone found vandalising national infrastructure will
be deemed to have committed economic sabotage, which is a treasonable offence.
Furthermore, Kenyatta ordered police to be ruthless when dealing with criminals caught selling scrap metals, reported news website Kenyans.co.ke.
According to Kenyan online news outlet The Star, Uhuru has said such vandalism acts translate to economic sabotage since the said infrastructures can bring the country’s activities to a standstill if they don’t operate optimally.
‘The law is clear. These acts are nothing less than economic sabotage which fall under treasonable acts and the law is clear as to how we deal with treasonable acts. We will not allow you to destroy that which is for the growth and development of our country to benefit a few individual pockets,’ President Kenyatta cautioned.
Meanwhile, according to police reports, parts of the destroyed power transmission lines were sold as scrap metal by the perpetrators, Kenyatta said.
Furthermore, The Star reported that Kenyatta’s sentiments came merely a day after a Kiambu court on Wednesday ordered the detention of nine senior Kenya Power employees, for a further eight days, to allow for investigations over their alleged involvement in
the countrywide power outages experienced in different parts of the country last week, local media reported.
