Police officers will receive a 10 percent pay rise next year as a two-year recruitment freeze is to be lifted to allow thousands of new recruits to join the force, the Ministry of Interior has announced.
The 10 percent pay rise in 2025 will be the second phase of a pay hike that began this year and was backdated to July.
Most junior officers received a 20 percent pay rise this year as part of a 40 percent pay rise recommended by the Task Force on Reforms in the National Police Service (NPS), Kenya Prisons Service (KPS) and National Youth Service (NYS).
The taskforce noted that although the cost of living for members of the NPS has increased by 84 percent since 2013, the increase in the minimum basic salary for a police officer joining the NPS has only increased by 21 percent (from Sh17,190 to Sh20,926) over the same period.
“Having considered the uniqueness of the services offered by the members of NPS, their working conditions, duties and responsibilities, disrupted family life, and the potential risk they face in the course of their duties, the taskforce recommends a basic salary increase of 40 percent for the lowest rank or Pay Grade (PG 1) for uniformed officers reducing progressively to three percent for the highest rank or Pay Grade (PG12),” the taskforce, headed by retired Chief Justice David Maraga, recommended in the report which was submitted to President Ruto in November 2023.
“The taskforce recommends that the new remuneration structure should be implemented in three phases from July 1, 2024,” the report added, while making similar recommendations for Prisons and National Youth services.
Police recruitment, which was frozen in 2022 due to budget constraints, will also resume next year, with thousands of new recruits joining the service.
"We have not recruited police officers for the last two years and this was mostly because of budgetary constraints. However, this exercise has been captured in the next financial year’s budget and we will be recruiting police officers who need to fill in the gaps in the ranks of the police service," Raymond Omollo, the Internal Security and National Administration Principal Secretary, told the Nation in an interview this week.
In July, the National Police Service Commission told the National Assembly's Committee on Administration and Internal Security that it intended to recruit more than 25,000 police officers over five years.
The commission told the committee that so far more than 10,000 police officers have left the service through natural attrition, deployment and retirement, among other reasons, but regretted that inadequate funding had hampered the recruitment process for the past two years.
Dr Omollo added: "We will also hire cadets in this exercise as recommended by the Maraga Task Force."
The Maraga Taskforce recommended the streamlining of the recruitment of graduate cadets into the service after concerns were raised that it was mired in "controversy and has left many serving officers disgruntled".
Currently, three categories of members can be recruited: police constables, higher ranks through a cadet entry scheme or specialists, or civilian staff.
“Recruitment of cadet officers should be carried out with the objective of addressing future leadership needs of the NPS. In this regard, recruits for cadet training should have a minimum KCSE grade of 'B'. Other officers from the Service may join the cadet training after attaining a degree and undergoing the requisite training in the Service,” the taskforce report recommended.
The PS assured Kenyans that the government has put in place a security strategy to ensure law and order during the festive season as well as a prompt response to crises should they arise.
“We know the festive season comes with its fair share of challenges and we have set up national, regional and county coordination mechanisms where we will share information and respond promptly,” Dr Omollo said.
The PS praised the security forces for the reduced incidents of banditry, cattle rustling and terrorism over the past year, a success he largely attributed to the multi-agency approach that brought together various security agencies.
The involvement of the Kenya Defence Forces in internal security operations, using military hardware, has provided necessary cover for police officers in operations, especially in the “troubled north,” he explained.
“We are very stable security-wise. Kenyans are able to do their businesses largely uninterrupted and we have had success in the initiative of silencing the guns. The cases of cattle rustling, which were rampant last year, have greatly reduced,” the PS said in an interview on the state of security.
The war on terror had been boosted by government investment in equipment for frontline security officers and training for police reservists.
“One of our biggest achievements against terrorism is our approach of involving everyone. This greatly improved intelligence gathering and sharing. We also have very good relations at the borders, including with the Somali government, which has been of great help in the fight against terrorism,” he said.
Community leaders, particularly village elders, are proving very helpful in gathering information from the grassroots and sharing it with National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs), the government is drafting a policy to provide them with some compensation.
The Ministry of Interior is developing the Village Elders' Policy and is in discussion with Parliament on the legislation. The matter will also soon be taken up for public participation "so that we get the right figures to compensate the village elders for their good work," Dr Omollo said.
The ministry is also working with the Council of Governors and County Assemblies to develop a robust Prevention of Violent Extremism Bill. Once implemented, the Bill will see counties allocate funds to finance counter-terrorism programmes.
However, the PS regretted that this spirited fight by the security agencies has had consequences, noting that the country has lost 29 officers in the line of duty in the past 12 months.
These included a policeman who died while supervising the distribution of examination materials and another who was stoned to death while protecting a young girl being forced to undergo the banned practice of female genital mutilation, he noted.
“We need to show empathy and support our officers. Most of the officers died from bullets while chasing armed robbers. At times, their vehicles ran over improvised explosive devices as they hunted for bandits and terrorists,” the PS said.
Dr Omollo said the ministry was working with the Ministries of Education and Defence to speed up the rehabilitation of 20 schools destroyed by bandits. He noted that repairs had been completed in 10 schools and that the rest would be completed by the end of the year so that schools could reopen in January.
Dr Omollo, however, acknowledged criticism of the police's handling of protests, particularly by Generation Z in June.
The protests, he said, had taught the government and the police in particular "a number of things about governance in this country" and how to deal with protests.
The government has been heavily criticised, including by the government's own human rights watchdog, for its brutal crackdown on protesters, including abductions and killings during the protests.
According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), 60 people have been killed and 601 injured since the demonstrations began on June 18.
The KNCHR also reported over 71 cases of abductions and enforced disappearances across the country and 1,376 arrests in the four months following the demonstrations.
“The Commission documented 601 injuries across the country which ranged from deep fractures, bullet wounds, soft tissue injuries and inhalation of teargas,” the KNCHR report said.
Asked about the abductions, extrajudicial killings and excessive use of force by police officers during the protests, PS Omollo replied that Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja had already spoken on the matter.
The PS cited the Constitution, which guarantees the operational independence of the police in the conduct of their work and that the ministry cannot interfere in police operations.
The police Internal Affairs Unit and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority have the backing of President Ruto to conduct thorough investigations into cases where police are accused of breaking the law in their handling of protesters, he added.
“The guarantee I can give Kenyans is that all the institutions within the ministry, starting with the police, will live up to their expectations and that any criminality on the government side or any other Kenyan must be dealt with as the law provides,” Dr Omollo said.
With the protests largely being mobilised online, Dr Omollo said the government had developed a robust intelligence system to help it act in time before things got out of hand.
He, however, said that the authorities have no intention of interfering with Kenyans' freedom to use social media, adding that "no one should [be afraid that we will] ever shut down these platforms because they are helpful".
