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The government has announced it will not recruit new officers into the National Police Service (NPS) this year.

Instead, Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho and Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai said the government would concentrate on training Administration Police (APs) officers who have been integrated into regular police service.

Though the recruitment has not taken place over the last two years, the government had been enlisting 10, 000 members into the service annually.

At the same time, Kibicho and Mutyambai admitted that  it would take at least  three years to provide all police officers with the new blue uniforms.

The duo told MPs that budgetary constraints cannot allow the government to provide the large  number of police officers with the  new uniforms.

Old uniform

However, the two assured the legislators that the government was keen on phasing out the old uniform in order to ensure that there is uniformity in the service.

Said Kibicho: “All the 79, 000 officers  will be provided with the new uniforms  within three years. This is because the budget we have been given cannot accommodate all the officers.”

Mutyambai said that though production of the new uniforms was going on, the government will not manage to produce enough clothes for all the officers within one year.

Last year, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i had  said that the government would save more than Sh700 million by making  the  police uniforms locally. 

The new uniform  was unveiled by President Uhuru Kenyatta about two years ago to  enhance visibility of the officers.

On recruitment of new recruits into the service, Kibicho disclosed that the  exercise would be conducted in the 2020 /21 financial year as they have already  committed all the funds they received in the current financial year.

Kibicho said they are currently concentrating on training 24,000 AP officers who were absorbed in the Kenya Police Service (KPS). The training,  he added, is necessary to enable AP to be taken through the police curriculum so that they can familiarise themselves with it since the  doctrines of both KPS and APs are different .

Acquire skills

He said: “As of now reforms are ongoing but we are concentrating on the training of 24000 APs who moved to the Kenya Police Service. The two institutions are different and we have to train them so that our APs can acquire skills like those of KPS.”

“Right now the IG is busy training them and that is why this financial year of  2019/2020 we have no space for new recruitment to replace those who we have lost through natural attrition and also those who have gotten greener pastures,” the PS added.

Police service

Late last year, Uhuru announced the merger of the Kenya Police Service and the Administration Police into General Duty Police officers under the command of the Inspector-General of Police. 

The move, he said was aimed at eliminating waste, duplication and overlap of duties in the National Police Service.