Police to recruit afresh
President Uhuru Kenyatta has bowed to pressure over his order that police recruits whose training had been stopped by a court report to college.
Consequently, the National Police Service Commission on Friday announced fresh recruitment for police officers across the country.
The recruitment which will seek to select 10,000 new police officers is slated to begin on April 20.
The president had been under pressure from lawyers and constitutional bodies since the order he issued in the wake of the Garissa terror attack.
Inspector-General Joseph Binnet had asked the recruits to report to Kiganjo college on Sunday April 12, 2015.
The Independent Police Oversight Authority, the Constutional Implementation Commission, Law Society of Kenya and security experts had described the order as illegal.
‘‘When corrupt means are used to join the force, police officers march out of Kiganjo Training College with an avaricious appetite bribes,’’ security expert Prof Trevor Ng’ulia wrote in the Saturday Nation.
Lawyer Kamu Kuria said the president must respect the law.
COURT ORDERS
‘‘Respect for court orders, however disagreeable one may find them, is a cardinal tenet of the rule of law and where a person feels that a particular order is irregular the option is not to disobey it with impunity but to apply to have the same set aside,’’ he said.
Police oversight chairman Macharia Njeru and CIC’s Charles Nyachae also opposed the order.
High Court Judge Isaac Lenaola in his ruling last October, had stopped the training because of massive bribery during the recruitment. The government appealed the decision and the court of appeal was to rule next month.
While calling for fresh recruitment on Friday, the police said: “The urgency was underscored last week following a terrorist attack on Garissa University College that left 147 students, staff and security officers dead.
“Following this heinous attack the President issued a directive for the immediate commencement of the training of police recruits.
“In light of these developments and cognizant of the on-going court process and the requirements to adhere to the rule of law, the National Police Service announces new recruitment for 10,000 police officers’’.
The President had linked the recent attacks to Garissa shortage of officers.
“Kenya badly needs additional officers and I will not keep the nation waiting. The inspector-general should, therefore, take urgent steps and ensure the 10,000 recruits, whose enrollment is pending, promptly report for training,” President Kenyatta said in the aftermath of the Garissa attack.
The inspector-general of Police, Joseph Boinnet, had ordered that all the 10,000 police recruits to report for training on Sunday.