Police Recruits to Report by Sunday

National Police Service Commission Chairman Johnstone Kavuludi says the exercise involved delicate regional and ethnic balancing to ensure fairness.

Kavuludi says the Monday exercise was a total contrast to last year’s that was marred by irregularities that led to its nullification.

“Reporting will be carried on until Sunday. And after Sunday anybody who will not have reported will be considered to have forfeited his place,” said Kavuludi.

It has become apparent that the recruitment followed ethnic arithmetic, with each of the 42 ethnic communities receiving its proportionate allocation.

KCSE D+ is enough

“To ensure fairness, and equity, the officers under the Inspector General worked out in detail the configuration that indicates the tribal distribution because we must agree there are many tribes in this country and they all must partake of any opportunities that might arise.”

There have been concerns from the public that the police minimum qualification of a D+ in the KCSE exam is too low compared to a seemingly rising intelligence levels among criminals. But does this argument hold water?

“It is an abuse of intelligence of Kenyans when we say a D +is not intelligent enough to be a police officer. A D+ is a good qualification. We are not training experts, during recruitment for general training. But the 9 month training it is a general course. Within those we have people with D+, diplomas, degrees and masters degrees,” said Kavuludi.

Meanwhile, the National Police Service Commission will await the determination of a case before the Court of Appeal on the 2014 recruitment before taking action against police officers suspected of having bungled the recruitment that led to its cancellation.