Police recruits perform marching drills during the Kenya police pass out parade at Kiganjo Police Training College in Nyeri County March 3, 2017.
| Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media GroupWeekly Review
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Brave in blue: The radical police reforms proposed by Maraga task force
What you need to know:
- Maraga team recommended that the laws be changed so that top officers in the disciplined services are appointed competitively.
- The Task force established that Police, Prisons and NYS are bedeviled by underfunding, endemic corruption and poor leadership.
Inspector-General of Police Japheth Koome, Deputy Inspectors-General Douglas Kanja (Administration Police Service) and Noor Gabow (Administration Police Service), as well as Director of Criminal Investigations Mohammed Amin will have their suitability to remain in office examined afresh if recommendations of a task force chaired by former Chief Justice David Maraga are implemented.
The report presented to President William Ruto last Thursday made wide-ranging recommendations, based on findings that apart from poor pay and funding, most of the endemic problems afflicting the National Police Service, the Kenya Prisons Service and the National Youth Service are attributed to poor leadership and institutionalised corruption.
“Challenges facing the Services were not just laws, policies, institutions and processes but also leadership gaps… it also became clear that the reform recommendations stand little chance of being implemented if the leadership issues in the respective Services are not boldly addressed” concluded the Task Force on a proposal that could lead to exit of the top brass in the uniformed service.
Also to be affected in the event of any cleanout are the top officers in the Prisons Service and National Youth Service under Commissioner-General John Kibaso Warioba and Acting Director-General James Tembur, respectively.
The Maraga Task Force also recommended that the laws be changed so that top officers in the disciplined services are appointed competitively rather than solely by the President or the responsible Cabinet Secretary. This is meant to ensure that professionalism and competence determine selection rather than political affiliations, nepotism, corruption or other factors.
In the case of the police, the report noted that it is necessary to determine if the current top leadership has the competence, integrity, and experience required to clean up the Service. It recommended a fresh vetting by an independent panel to be appointed by the President for all officers from the rank of Senior Superintendent of Police and above.
It asked the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration, Kithure Kindiki, to immediately draft a Bill for Parliament to reinstate laws towards the constitutional requirement for the open, transparent and competitive recruitment of the Inspector-General, the Deputy-Inspectors General, and the Director of Criminal Investigations.
This was provided for previously under Sections 12, 13 and 30 of the National Police Service Act repealed in 2014 amendment. The report noted that the problems identified were not new to the three Services, having been the subject of previous taskforces and committees but never acted upon.
The Taskforce established that Police, Prisons and NYS are bedeviled with myriad challenges, foremost among them being underfunding; endemic corruption; and poor leadership. The Police Service was specifically indicted for corruption which witnesses said was endemic and is now deeply embedded in the institutional culture.
Corruption starts right from recruitment where placements are “sold” to those who can afford to fork out large amounts of money, or only offered to relatives of the powerful and politically connected. Information availed indicated that slots were being sold for up to Sh600,000 or more.
Those employed through bribery, nepotism or political influence sustain their place in the Service by remaining loyal to those who did them favours. The report also cited rampant cases of conflict of interest that fuel corruption, including police officers owning public service vehicles, breakdown towing trucks, bars, gambling dens and “generally engaging in business and activities that compromise their impartiality and professionalism”.
Task Force hearings across all 47 counties saw the Traffic Police Department come special mention in submissions by most stakeholders, with police roadblocks described as toll stations, from where the takings were “shared up to the highest levels in the hierarchy of police leadership.”
Recommendation was restructuring of the current traffic police unit into a new Traffic Management Unit mainly reliant on technology to control and manage traffic flow, and removal of those ubiquitous ‘toll stations’ to be replaced with mobile patrols.
At the end of September while addressing his senior officers, Koome candidly admitted that corruption in the Police Service was out of control, demanding an end to the culture where ‘returns’ from Traffic shakedowns and other forms of corruption are spread upwards to the senior officers.
He revealed that some junior officers had even tried to share proceeds of corruption with him: “Some have even come to my office trying to give me something, but I refused. We must end this. Colleagues, it comes a time when we say enough is enough”.
He did not reveal, however, whether the officers who tried to give him some of their corrupt takings had been arrested or subjected to disciplinary proceedings. The report also noted chronic underfunding that made it difficult for the police to manage escalating security threats including cattle rustling, banditry, terrorism, violent extremism, human trafficking, cybercrimes, narcotics and illicit alcohol.
“Severe supply gaps present the NPS with serious logistical nightmares in its operations. For instance, the current monthly fuel allocation of 450 litres per vehicle, irrespective of the operational needs of different areas, or the vastness of some counties such as Marsabit and Turkana, is simply insufficient.
The equipment and gear currently provided to NPS officers is grossly inadequate, hardly serviced and maintained and mostly in a poor state of repair”. But ultimately things boiled down to what the report headlined as “the challenge of leadership”.
The 2010 report from a Taskforce chaired by Judge Philip Ransley had also noted that the Police Service lacked competent leadership with strategic vision and commitment. It established that legal frameworks for effective and professional police performance were already in place, but not adhered to due to lethargy and lack of competence.
It also noted that both the Ransley Report and the Commission of Inquiry chaired by Justice Philip Waki had cited misuse of the police for partisan political objectives, which has significantly eroded professionalism and public trust in the Service. Significant in these findings is that the Ruto government was elected into office on the express pledge to halt political influence on police operations as was reportedly rampant under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration.
The then Inspector-General Hillary Mutyambai was allowed to retire on ‘health grounds’ as soon as Ruto took office in September 2022. Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, who had been widely accused of selective arrest and prosecution on trumped-up charges of allies of then Deputy President Ruto, was shown the door.
President Ruto, on assuming office, also made a big show of granting the Police Service operational autonomy through control of its own budget line. There is, however, little evidence that the new regimes at National Police Service and DCI headquarters are any more independent of political control and direction than their predecessors.
The Maraga Report established that rather than restrict themselves to policy, “there has been systemic micro-management of the Service by previous Cabinet Secretaries that has significantly eroded the operational independence of the Service.”
Reference to past CSs absolves Kindiki, but the report still notes then even the current government has not moved to remedy the situation with steps towards addressing prevailing policy and oversight gaps, such as the operationalisation of the Police Reform Unit envisaged under the NPS Act.
The report also notes the continuing turf wars between the police leadership instead and the National Police Service Commission, noting that the latter has “acquiesced to the continued usurpation of its functions by the NPS leadership, thereby exacerbating the vices that it was established to redress. It has also generally been unable to develop policies and institute measures that would enable it to perform its constitutional and statutory obligations.”
Koome has on numerous occasions publicly defied or rubbished the role of the Police Service Commission and Independent Policing Oversight Authority, who are the supposed to be the independent civilian bodies responsible, respectively, for appointments, promotions, transfer and discipline; and investigating crimes and other misuse of police powers.
Ironically, however, instead of moving to restrain Koome and protect the role of civilian oversight, Maraga recommends removal by “negotiated exit, or any other legally recognised modality” of the current National Police Service Commissioners.
The team at risk of being shown the door is chaired by Eliud Kihara and deputised by Alice Otwala. Members are Eusebius Laibuta, Lilian Kiamba and John ole Moyaki, with Peter Leley and Commission Secretary/CEO. The top police command of Koome, Kanja, Gabow and Mohammed also sit on the Commission.
