- There are 100,000 active police officers in the service.
- Some of them are bodyguards, drivers and others are not engaged in active police operations.
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki on Wednesday said the government will transfer 42, 500 National Police Service officers who have stayed more than three years in their stations.
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More than 42,000 police officers who have served in one station for more than three years will be transferred by next Wednesday, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki said on Tuesday.
He said some 42,500 officers would be affected by the transfers which he termed as inevitable.
This is almost half of the police population.
There are 100,000 active police officers in the service. Some of them are bodyguards, drivers and others are not engaged in active police operations.
“The government has decided to transfer all National Police Service officers who have stayed for more than three years in one station. Some 42,500 officers will be transferred by Wednesday next week by all means possible,” Kindiki said during a security review forum in Ol Kalou, Nyandarua county.
But there are concerns internally the transfers which are being done out of political pressure, will have a negative impact on the police operations.
“They want us to transfer an expert in a given area to Kitui because of the order. It will affect police operations at large,” warned a police officer aware of the disquiet.
Kindiki argued officers who have extensively served in one duty station “have no capacity to enforce the law impartially.”
“They have even married and opened businesses there, you don’t know if someone is an officer or one of the villagers,” Kindiki said.
In October last year, Kindiki told the Senate that the National Police Service had been given two months to facilitate the transfers. He at the time warned that officers who would not move would not receive their salaries, adding that the NPS had been notified of the guidelines in September.
Meanwhile, he said for officers doing special assignments, the provision of a year-long maximum service at a duty station given would be enforced.
The movements have financial implications and will see the government pay millions of shillings for disturbance allowances.
The move has been occasioned by last month’s death of 20 people who consumed poisonous alcohol in a village in Kirinyaga county.
There were claims that some of the cops there sold the chemical to the dealers who in turn sold to the consumers.