Corruption and Enforcement Personnel as Factors That Influence the Implementation of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Policies in Nairobi County

Abstract

Alcohol and drug abuse remains one of the problems affecting the Kenyan state today to the extent that it has been declared a national disaster. The situation is worse in the low income area of Kawangware, Mukuru Kwa Njenga and Mathare among others. The National Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) was set up to provide policy direction on alcohol and drug abuse control. Using Kawangware as a case study, this study sought to establish the extent to which corruption affects the implementation of Alcohol and Drug Policies in Kenya. The study also looked at enforcement personnel as a factor that affects the implementation of ADA policies. This study’s objectives sought to investigate corruption and enforcement personnel as factors that affect the implementation of Alcohol and Drug Abuse policies in Kenya. The study’s conceptual framework looked at corruption in form of bribery, extortion and effectiveness of enforcement personnel, the police officers, chiefs and assistant chiefs in terms of their preparedness in form of training and resource allocation as the main concepts that affect implementation of ADA policies. When high levels o corruption is witnessed among the enforcement personnel this effects implementation. Enforcement may also be affected by lack of proper training on ADA policies and facilitations on the part of the enforcement agencies. The study’s hypothesis looked into corruption and enforcement personnel as the two factors that affect implementation of Alcohol and Drug Abuse policies. The study findings confirmed both the hypotheses, that indeed corruption and enforcement personnel have negatively affected the implementation of ADA policies. The study concluded that for effective implementation of ADA policies, all acts of corruption should be eliminated, the enforcement personnel should be well facilitated and well trained on ADA policies.