Police Recruitment Was Fair, Says Rights Group

Fred Mukinda

28 April 2011

Nairobi — The joint Kenya police recruitment has been given a clean bill of health by one of the independent observer groups.

Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) chairperson Florence Jaoko Thursday described it as an open exercise which restricted fraud and corruption unlike in past recruitments.

“It’s good. Fair seems to give it a very low average but especially if we are talking about what was the main aim, which was to avoid a lot of fraud and corruption and to make it more open. The exercise succeeded,” she said.

However, potential female recruits shied away from the exercise, according to her report showing only 28 per cent of the applicants were women with only 20 per cent being successful.

The recruitment had targeted 30 per cent female recruits as provided for in the Constitution.

She wants the disparity reviewed before candidates are admitted into training colleges.

“The Commission for Implementation of the Constitution should summon the list of candidates and engage the Police Reforms Implementation Committee to ensure the anomaly is reversed,” she said.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said the exercise had achieved the set target of recruits who are expected two be admitted in training colleges between May 12 and 14.

Of the 7,000 recruits, 4,000 would be inducted into the Administration Police and the rest into the regular force which comprises of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and General Service Unit (GSU).

Ms Jaoko released the preliminary report to journalists, under the auspices of The Usalama Reforms Forum, which had deployed 200 officials to monitor the exercise at recruitment centres.

The independent observers also spotted several anomalies including bribery, failure to consider ethnic diversities while some hopefuls were denied access to some centres.

For the first time independent observers were allowed to monitor the recruitment as part of the ongoing police reforms.

Implementation of reform proposals saw a big number of candidates disqualified after they failed to meet the new requirement of a minimum of Grade C in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination, or its equivalent.

Those who scored D plus and even lower grades were in the past inducted into the police force.

But reform proposals by the Justice Ransley Commission are seeking to professionalise the force.

The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, the KNCHR and a dozen non-governmental organisations were invited as observers.

The others are yet to release their findings.

The Usalama Forum established a centre in which observations from the public were received via SMS.

Ms Jaoko said they were investigating a complaint the National Youth Service headquarters in Nairobi was closed to hopefuls and observers 20 minutes after the exercise kicked off.

“There was a significant delay in the declaration of names of the successful candidates. In some centres, names were declared as late as 10 pm,” she said.

District Commissioners headed panels of recruiting officers in 287 centres and were required to announce the results after the close of the exercise.

The observers also noted other anomalies in cases where the hopefuls were turned away for not having certificates of good conduct.

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