Kalenjins form the majority of staff at the National Police Service, a report by the Office of the Inspector General shows.
The report, submitted to the Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity of the National Assembly on Tuesday, showed Kalenjins are 19, 337 out of the total 106,830 police officers.
Members of the community employed with the National Police Service are Keiyo (1,840), Kipsigis (6,004), Marakwet (1,620), Nandi (5,507), Sabaot (1,440) and Tugen (2,926).
The report further showed Kikuyus form the second largest community employed at the service with 18, 004 members followed by Kamba (9,809), Luhya (9,752), Luo (8,773), Meru (7,121) and Kisii (6,517).
“Currently, the Service has 106,830 members, of which 89,373 are male and 17,457 female. Males represent 84 per cent and females 16 per cent respectively,” the report shows.
The NPS comprises of three services — the Kenya Police Service, Administration Police Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Kenya Police Service makes up the majority of the workforce with 74, 251 followed by Administration Police Service (26, 409) and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (6,170).
NPS said it has guiding policies and requirements that factor in ethnic, gender, regional representation among other inclusivity considerations during recruitment.
The report noted that the nature of police work is generally physical and harsh environment under which police mostly operate.
It said one of the requirements during recruitment is that a person must be physically and mentally fit.
NPS added that candidates who don’t meet the requirement are not eligible.
“This has made it impractical for the National Police Service to attain the required 5 per cent threshold of persons living with disabilities," the report noted.
“However, after basic training, those who get injured while in service and the extent of injury do not warrant removal from the service, are retained and deployed to perform lighter duties,” it showed.
The report noted that during the last three recruitments carried out in the years 2017, 2018 and 2021, a total of 16,051 officers were employed.
It further said the number of police officers actively engaged in fighting crime is approximately 50,000 while the rest are deployed to specialised units as well as VIP protection.
“This means that in reality, one police officer is supposed to protect 951 civilians as compared to recommended United Nations ratio where one police officer is required to protect 450 civilians,” the report showed.
The report added that in some regions, it has been difficult to find persons with the requisite qualifications turning up for recruitment at the designated recruitment centres.