Kibiwott Koross
13 October 2008
Nairobi — It's 8pm, and Naomi Mulia calls her office for help; she has just come across a boy's body lying on a city street.
"What do I do?" Ms Mulia asks her colleague who is on night shift.
"Call the police -- that's a police case," comes the reply.
She dials 999 but for 10 minutes, no one is picking it up. She gets upset, and looks left, then right to find out if anyone is watching. No one. She quietly leaves the scene.
"First, I dialled 999 and got the 'number-doesn't-exist' tone. I was surprised and thought I pressed the wrong code," she said later. "Then I recalled instructions on display in public booths: 'In case of emergency, dial 0'. So I tried 0, but the line went silent."
Thousands of Kenyans talk of similar experiences with 999 and 112. People are frustrated daily as they seek emergency help from police officers.
Yet upon witnessing or being involved in an emergency, the first thing that comes to mind is to contact the emergency services, which are free of charge.
The 999 service was introduced in 1937 in London as a measure against insecurity as war loomed. The other, 112, is the emergency number in the European Union, Colombia and mobile networks worldwide.
The EU established 112 in 1991 for its member states. They use 999 only when an "immediate" response is required such as when crime is taking place, or someone is facing immediate danger.
In Kenya, the police receive about 14 million calls through the 999 and 112 systems per year, according to police spokesman Eric Kiraithe.
"If it is not a situation where crime is happening there and then, or where someone is in immediate danger, you should call your local police instead. Each police station has a special number that can handle all non-emergency situations.
"We aim to answer 80 per cent of 999 calls within 15 seconds, so it's important that calls to 999 are genuine and appropriate to ensure that we can respond properly to real emergencies," said Mr Kiraithe, who added: "Apart from the local police station emergency lines, you can now contact the police in your area through the hot lines provided to get immediate help."
Mr Kiraithe said each police division -- which represents a district -- is responsible for answering the emergency call.
For example, he said, when calling from Chebiemit trading centre in Marakwet District, the call should be answered by police officers from Kapsowar police divisional headquarters.
He said that besides the 999, the police force had additional lines in all the eight provinces because of the many calls.
But Mr Reuben Kendagor, a councillor from Baringo North, said police were not picking up the phone, especially at night. He said police knew the region was bandit-prone, yet they left the line unattended or engaged it while people remained desperate.
"They don't help at all," said the Ngoraro Ward councillor. "We no longer try it," he told the Nation by telephone.
One day, he said an officer who picked up the phone asked him why they could not sell their livestock instead of bothering them in the middle of the night. "I don't want to receive such an answer again" he said.
Mr Kiraithe said officers who failed to answer the telephone calls should be responsible. "That's why they are employed -- to serve Kenyans," he said, then warned: "If it's established that such officers exist, we will act accordingly."
But he also cautioned the public against lying about non-existent emergencies as officers could dot tell whether a call was genuine. "The public should be serious and say the truth," he said.
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