1,300 former AP officers to graduate at Kinganjo Police College
Some 1,300 former Administration Police Service officers have completed reorientation course at the National Police Service College main campus in Kinganjo and will graduate today (Monday).
The officers in the rank of police constable have been on a two-month standardization course after they were moved to the Kenya Police Service – general duties on July 12. The training started on October 24.
NPS College Kinganjo campus commandant Japheth Koome has directed all regional and county commanders to make arrangements to pick the officers on Tuesday.
“You are requested to send means of transport to pick them on December 17 without fail,” Koome said in a memo sent to the commanders on Friday.
The NPS transferred 23,900 APS officers to join the KPS counterparts in general duties but regional and county commanders criticized the transfer before the retraining.
NPS board later finally bowed to pressure from the commanders to retrain the ex-AP officers but in batches.
The Deputy IG in charge of KPS, Edward Mbungua, had directed the regional and county commanders to select the AP officers who jointly retrained with their KPS counterparts.
The police chiefs in 25 counties each selected 21 officers from AP who were accompanied by nine colleagues from KPS for the training.
The remaining counties will select 19 APs and six KPS officers each for the training and the training will continue until all officers are retrained.
“Following the NPS reforms which culminated in the deployment of about 24,000 APS officers to KPS general duty, NPS College has developed a syllabus to sensitize the incoming officers,” Mbungua said in internal memo to the regional and county commanders in October.
Middle-level commanders had raised concerns over the capacity of the ex-APs fficers to perform general duties of KPS where they were deployed.
A senior police officer, who sought anonymity, said the deployment of APs was hurriedly done without adequate preparations.
The officer said KPS received a big number of officers, but who are not adequately prepared to perform duties at a police station because they ought to have been equipped with skills to undertake police work done at the station prior to the redeployment.
“The general duties performed at a police station require a training that is not available at the NPS College’s campuses in Embakasi,” he said.
“We have seen very brilliant officers from APs but we are unable to nurture them because they lack basic skills like taking inventory at a scene of crime, opening an investigations file, taking complainants’ and witnesses’ statements and identifying sections of law to cite when charging suspects.”
The officer said the former APs are finding it hard to carry out work because of lack of basic skills.
But the officer faulted the board for selecting a very small number of officers to go for the training.
“The NPS College has three main campuses which have a total capacity of training 10,000 at a time. We know you cannot withdraw 10,000 police officers to take them for the reorientation course without leaving a dangerous security vacuum,” he said.
“But you can admit 1,500 in each of the campuses hence train 4,500 officers in two months to reduce the time spent on retraining the 23, 900 officers.”