Life imprisonment for cattle rustlers: Inside Cherargei's new Bill seeking to tame livestock theft

Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei has tabled a Bill in Parliament seeking to introduce mandatory branding of all livestock in the country to tame cattle rustling.

The Bill is proposing life imprisonment as a penalty for those who use violence to cause harm while stealing livestock.

The Bill that is already undergoing scrutiny at the Senate has far-reaching proposals among them; Every livestock owner shall before the livestock attains the age of six months brand it or cause it to be branded with a registered brand of which the livestock owner is the proprietor.

The new piece of legislation suggests that every livestock farmer must make the branding conspicuous, safe for the livestock and unique.

For purposes of tracking the stolen livestock for instance, the new Cattle Rustling Bill proposes that a livestock owner intending to remove livestock from his premise for the purpose of sale or slaughter or any other purpose shall obtain a removal permit from an inspector.

The removal permit will be kept for three months. The removal permit of the branding tags can also be denied if the origin or destination of the livestock is disease-infested or the owner has not complied with the set regulations.

A large percentage of livestock stolen always ends up in the slaughterhouses. This is where the trail ends but now the new Bill suggests that ”every owner of a slaughterhouse will keep records of every livestock slaughtered and carcass or produce leaving the abattoir.”

These records too must be available for at least three months after slaughter. The records will have all the details of branding and certificates of removal of the brandings.

The Bill prohibits the sale of livestock or produce between 6.30pm. and 6am.

The new Bill, if passed, has made cattle rustling a painful mission and stealing livestock using violence will now attract life imprisonment. 

Altering or defacing livestock branding tags will land you a 14-year imprisonment or a Ksh.1 million fine or both.

Equally, failure to brand livestock will slap you with a one-year imprisonment or a Ksh.100,000 fine.

The new legislation has also targeted financiers, planners and perpetrators of the banditry activities.

This comes even as Interior Cabinet Secretary Prof. Kithure Kindiki, who held a security  meeting in Laikipia on Thursday, warned politicians from the North Rift region against interfering with the security operations to flush out bandits.

“We are going to dismantle all the bandit infrastructure,” Kindiki said.

Citizen TV has learnt that more politicians have been lined up for questioning over the resurgence of bandit attacks.

“We are going to separate the bandits from their enablers....the bandits we shall with them in a kinetic manner,” Kindiki said.