The Reece Squad, the elite formation in charge of presidential security has gotten the highest allocation of officers that have been deployed to specialized units within the General Service Unit.
The Sub-unit of the General Service Unit (GSU) got a total of 495 officers out of the 2,446 who passed out after completing training at the GSU College in Embakasi ‘B’.
Apart from the President, the recce is also in charge of securing the first family, The Deputy President and select Very Important Persons (VIPs).
It is also deployed to highly complex operations such as neutralizing of terrorists as was seen during the Westgate, Dusit D2 and Garissa University Al-Shabaab attacks.
The boost in numbers of the Recce squad comes a few months after a series of lapses in Presidential security that saw members of the public breach the security cordon around the president in public meetings.
The lapse led to changes in the leadership of the Presidential escort Unit and the Recce squad with the then commander of the escort unit Noah Kirwa losing his position. William Sawe from Recce squad was appointed to take his place.
The GSU Headquarters sub operation unit got 86 officers, while the Presidential Guard Sub-Unit, popularly known as the ‘G- Company’ got 50 new officers.
The G Company is the elite paramilitary element stationed at high-security installations like State House Nairobi, State Lodges, and official residences to protect the President, Deputy President, and first family.
The police training college at Embakasi got 77 officers while the rest of the formations of the GSU got allocations of between 75-104 new servicemen.
