On September 26, Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS), Professor Kithure Kindiki explained the reasons why police officers open bars and marry women in their stations.
Appearing before a National Assembly committee to address questions on police brutality, Kindiki stated that officers overstaying in stations leads to such behavior.
“Overspending time in those stations makes police officers part of the local community, engaging in civilian activities, including marrying local girls. As such a police officer loses the integrity, the impartiality, and the esteemed he should carry himself with,” Kindiki explained.
Kindiki was responding to a question from a committee member, who asked on behalf of a police officer regarding the redeployment of police officers.
Kindiki defends police redeployment exercise
The interior CS argued that police officers should not stay at a particular station for a long time hence the government introduced a mandatory redeployment exercise which kicked off last year.
“42,500 officers have been in one station for more than 3 years contrary to the government policy,” Kindiki highlighted.
Also Read: Why Kenyan Police Officers Could Stay in Haiti for a Year
According to the CS Interior, the transfer program is halfway and so far, they have managed to transfer 26,000 police officers.
Kindiki further reiterated that the transfer policy is irreversible, and will be implemented fully.
Interior CS Addresses Senate on 2023 Redeployment
“Any officer who has served in one station for more than three years must move to another station. You cannot have an officer serving in a station for more than seven years, ten years, or fifteen years. It is against the public interest,” Kindiki explained.
Appearing before the floor of the Senate last year on October 11, the Interior CS announced that the deployment exercise was to begin with the National Police Service (NPS) who were given a maximum of 60 days to implement the directive.
Also Read: Kenya to Deploy 600 More Police Officers to Haiti
“The directive by the government is that any officer after the 60 days who continues to resist or for whatever reason does not move to a different station, the salary will be stopped. It is that serious,” the lawyer said at the time.
He also emphasized that successive governments have failed to enforce the policy regarding the regular transfer of police officers based on duration.
Follow our WhatsApp Channel for real-time news updates!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaB3k54HltYFiQ1f2i2C
