The parliamentary committee that investigated the Westgate attack has recommended the sacking of Police Inspector General David Kimaiyo and Kenya Defense Forces chief General Julius Karangi.
They also want senior officers who failed in their duties punished.
The four day attack on the Westgate mall began on September 21 and left 67 people dead and another 200 injured. Two floors of the building were brought down in circumstances that are yet to be fully explained.
Yesterday Administration and National Security committee chairman Asman Kamama said the report will be brought to the National Assembly for debate tomorrow.
“The report will be tabled in the House on Thursday this week. There is a lot in the report and you will see much of it once it is ready,” Kamama said.
He said that the committee has proposed a total overhaul of the Immigration Department and demanded total war on terrorism.
Immigration officers who have served for a long time in their posts and who are suspected to collude with criminal elements will either be retired or sacked.
The committee recommends further investigations by the Director of Public Prosecutions and those culpable should be arrested and prosecuted.
The report was prepared jointly by the Defense and Foreign Relations committee, chaired by Ndun’gu Gethenji, and the Administration and National Security committee will be presented in the house this week but will only be debated next year because Parliament will go on Christmas recess.
The report accused Kimaiyo and Karangi of “sleeping” on the job but exonerates the Head of the National Intelligence Service General Michael Gichangi.
The report explains that the two were warned by the NIS of the attack but failed to act on the intelligence.
The final report contradicts the initial clearance of the KDF by Gethenji and Kamama in early October before the MPs finished their investigations.
The two were criticized by their own committee members and yesterday tried unsuccessfully to have the MPs soften their recommendations.
The MPs have also recommended that victims of the attacks, including the owners of businesses at Westgate, should be compensated.
Business owners complained that KDF soldiers looted their shops after they successfully contained the attackers in the mall.
The KDF has arrested and court martialed three soldiers for theft but Gen Karangi has denied that there was general looting.
Yesterday a committee member told the Star that the “radical surgery” will be implemented in phases if the report is approved. The report requires a simple majority in the House for it to pass.
The MP claimed Defense committee chairman Ndungu Gethenji (Tetu) had pushed to have the police and army exempted.
“We rejected the proposals to have KDF and the Kenya Police excluded from blame. The information before us also shows that the two security organs got intelligence briefs. The presentations made by the NIS before the committee and in the presence of the two institutions would have made the whole report a mockery of facts,” the MP said.
The MPs instead cleared the NIS after its presentations before the committee. The Kenya Police has consistently denied having received intelligence briefs.
“The committee report says that officers who failed to act on the intelligence reports that were done and circulated across the city’s police bosses by NIS will be dealt with as per the law and their own standing orders. It is so sad for innocent lives to be lost just because a government officer fails to do what is required,” the MP said.
Other recommendations include enactment of the refugee law that will regulate how the government will handle refugees in future and the closing of all refugee camps in the two months following the adoption of the report by the National Assembly.
By DAVID MWERE, The Star