•Officers hold key positions in the service.
•They secured orders reinstating their salaries before the November 21 demotion.
Image: FILE
Fresh details have emerged showing that top cops make up the majority of graduate officers embroiled in a tussle with their bosses over deducted salaries.
Records seen by the Star reveal that the team comprises of OCPDs from various police divisions in Nairobi, Northeastern, Nyanza, Western, Coast, Eastern and parts of Rift Valley.
The list also includes officers from the Presidential Escort, several Officers Commanding Stations (OCSs) and Traffic Base Commandants.
Heads of Provincial Police Offices have also been sucked into the pay row pitting the officers against the National Police Service Commission (NPSC).
Also on the list are several uniformed officers attached to the police headquarters, Vigilance House, Nairobi, college instructors and senior officers attached to the anti-stock theft unit and the Force Driving School.
Both GSU and Kenya Police training instructors are on the team battling for the reinstatement of their graduate salaries which the service stopped paying 13 months ago.
A number of commandants attached to the Kenya Airport and Railways police units were equally affected, as is the case with senior members of the Diplomatic Police and the Tourism Police units.
A quick peek into the document shows that OCPDs and OCSs, who drive day-to-day police operations, are drawn from across the country.
The officers are tussling with NPSC chairman to reinstate their salaries.
The cuts followed the officers’ demotion from Job Group J to Job Group F, a move which saw some of them have their monthly pay cut from Sh60,000 to Sh38,000.
The lot sued the NPSC over the cuts and obtained court orders on September 29, 2022, which directed the service to reinstate their pay.
Following continued defiance by the commission, the officers’ lawyer Charles Kanjama has written to the NPSC warning it of an imminent contempt suit.
“The applicants have informed us that despite the existence (of court orders), the applicants’ salaries for the month of October 2022 were still reduced in contempt of said judgment of the court,” the lawyer stated.
Kanjama, in his letter copied to the Office of the IG, Attorney General, and Rosemary Kamau – in charge of the police payroll, said the police service commission has “knowingly and negligently refused to adhere to the order of the court.”
“Please take note that failure to adhere to the orders from the judgment of the court in this matter will leave us with no option but to further progress the existing contempt of court proceedings,” the letter reads.
To escape the suit, the police had until today to reinstate the salaries, with the lawyers citing earlier contempt orders which the court issued on April 28, 2022.
At that time, the court said it would not grant the commission audience until it complied with the orders to reinstate the pay.
“Take note that unless the said order of stay is complied with within three days, we shall pursue further contempt proceedings against you in the best interest of our clients,” Kanjama said.
The Labour Court, in the ruling by judge Nduma Nderi, directed that the salaries be backdated to November 1, 2021.
The judge concluded that there were illegalities in the demotion, adding that the NPSC decision was unlawful, unreasonable and void.
“A declaration is issued that the unilateral decision to reduce graduate officers’ pay from Job Group ‘J’ to Job Group ‘F’ was arbitrary, unreasonable and unlawful,” the judge said.
The cuts came into force in March 2018 when the NPSC directed the implementation of the Career Progression Guidelines, 2016.
The salaries were restored in April 2018 and the officers continued to enjoy the terms and conditions of service until November last year when NPSC demoted them.
Last year in November, the officers secured an order of stay of implementation of the demotion, which they say their bosses ignored.
The defiance by top police chiefs prompted the affected officers to head to court. They secured orders reinstating their salaries before the November 21 demotion.
The officers, however, said that senior managers at Vigilance House have defied the orders and that they have earned the reduced salary for the past 13 months.
NPSC chairman Eliud Kinuthia directed acting IG Noor Gabow in a letter on October 3 to reinstate the salaries and the accrued arrears without any loss of earnings to the officers.
He said the directive was in compliance with the court order issued on September 29, which rendered the demotion unlawful.
The Court of Appeal in the 2018 case by lawyer Miguna Miguna against former Interior CS Fred Matiang’i and the ministry ruled that court orders are binding.
“When courts issue orders, they do so not as suggestions or pleas to the person at whom they are directed…court orders are compulsive, peremptory, and expressly binding.”