The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) has fingered the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the National Police Service (NPS) as major impediments to their role in investigating excesses of police officers.

During the inaugural Human Rights Summit organized by the Judiciary on December 10, 2024, IPOA revealed that while their outgoing team managed to solve a record number of cases and convict officers, challenges remained on their path.

“While we celebrate the achievements for the period, we also acknowledge the challenges we encountered. These included inadequate budget allocation, non-cooperation from some witnesses and police officers, parallel investigations by multiple agencies, staffing constraints, delays in the prosecution of cases and work-related risks,” outgoing IPOA CEO Elema Halake noted.

Adding: “These challenges tested our resilience, but did not deter our trajectory towards achievement of our mission.”

On her part, the outgoing IPOA board chairperson Anne Makori indicated that the body had significantly made strides towards bringing errant police officers to justice.

“Our dedicated team conducted 4,865 investigations recommendation of 773 files to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) for action. As a result of IPOA’s professional and impartial investigations, 30 officers were found culpable and convicted for various offences, bringing the total number of Authority convictions since inception to 33,” Makori revealed.

Makori also indicated that during their six-year tenure, the authority processed 20,112 complaints against police officers and successfully resolved 12,732 of them.

Interior PS applauds officers

Interior and National Administration Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo, on his part, hailed the police service for conducting themselves within the guidelines of the law, pointing out that the number of convictions was minimal.

“The statistics show that only 0.02% of the nearly 100,000 police officers were convicted, while over half of the cases against officers were found to be unjustified. These figures also demonstrate that at least 99% of police officers operate within the law,” Omollo said.

In 2020, IPOA was put to task to give reasons for the lower conviction rates despite receiving cases of police excesses.

This came after the authority revealed that of the 15,000 complaints they had received since 2017, only six had resulted in convictions.

The authority then defended itself, lamenting that most of the cases were marred by low or no witness turnout.

On Monday, December 9, 2024, the newly appointed IPOA chairperson Isaac Hassan took an oath of office to steer the oversight body for their next term of office.