Top police commanders moved as AP, Regular Police merger begins

By Elphas Lagat 

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet has unveiled eight new regional police commanders, marking the beginning of the unification of regular and administration police announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta in September last year.

The new appointments comprise of six male regional police commanders and two female commanders; Judy Jebet Lamet and Eunice Kihiko, who will now take charge of Central and  Eastern Regions respectively.

Three of the new police bosses; Paul Soi, Vincent Makokha and Rashid Yakub are drawn from the Administration Police.

At least 20 senior police officers have now been recalled to police headquarters for redeployment. Under the planned restructuring, several senior positions, including that of officer commanding police divisions, OCPD, are being scrapped.

“This is the first phase, the next one will be county commanders who we will duly announce in the course of the month,” said Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet on Thursday.

Under the reforms aimed at unifying the three pillars and changing the command structure, hierarchy, housing and allocation of duties 24,000 AP officers will now transit and join their colleagues in Kenya Police Service.

Police officers are also expected to vacate government houses and start living with the communities they serve.

“As per the guidelines of the SRC junior police officers have been paid their house allowances and they can even start renting houses from the beginning of next month,” said Boinnet.

The occurrence book and several police services are also expected to be fully digital once the Interior CS Fred Matiang’i launches the digitized system on Monday next week.