Migori County Commissioner Joseph Rotich has warned criminals still holding illegal guns in the area to surrender them to the authority within two weeks or face the full force of the law.
At the same time, he announced that the government was keen to repossess all registered firearms in the hands of civilians who did not merit search weapons.
“We have noticed a trend of a lust for guns by people who do not deserve them at all. An exercise to conduct a thorough vetting of all issued firearms is already on and soon we will repossess the weapons for safekeeping by the government,” said the administrator.
He made the remarks during celebrations to mark this year’s Mashujaa day at Kogelo Mix Secondary School in Awendo Sub County.
His remarks followed complaints from local leaders that police were doing very little to deal with the ever-rising insecurity in the region perpetuated by armed criminals.
The leaders cited Awendo town as the worst affected area due to the near-collapse of the sugar industry in the area that has triggered a state of joblessness and low income to the local people.
Mr. Rotich said the government had in the past issued an ultimatum to the illegal gun holders especially in Kuria region to voluntary hand them over to the authority but regretted that very few had been recovered under an offered amnesty during that time.
He told local leaders to support the illegal firearms recovery exercise rather than waiting for innocent people to suffer in their regions during a forceful mop-up of the weapons by security agents.
The administrator also put on notice parents especially from the Kuria Community to stop circumcising their daughters, saying such a tradition was retrogressing and interfered with the education of the girl-child.
The community annually conducts massive operations on boys and girls during the month of December to usher them into adulthood, a tradition that has exposed the youngsters to a lot of health risks and negative socio-economic development.
Mr. Rotich said the local committee charged with monitoring and verifying projects and programs sponsored by the national government will soon start auditing all projects done under the national government constituency fund (NG-CDF).
He asked school principals to start preparing all documents used in the implementation of such projects in their respective institutions for perusal by the County Development Implementation, Coordination Committee (CDICC) when call upon to table them.
Heads of primary schools whose institutions have irregularly lost ICT devises supplied to them through the multi-million digital learning program will also have to blame for their deeds, he warned.
Addressing the same function, Migori County Government CEC in charge of health Isca Oluoch urged the local people to embrace using toilets.
“It is worrying that only 30 per cent of the local population have toilets in their homes. The rest use bushes and sugarcane plantation to make their long calls thus polluting the environment,” said Olouch.
She said they plan to visit every part of the county with a view to educating homeowners and compel them to construct pit-latrines in order to promote sanitation among the local population.