Police reforms in Kenya on course

By Dickens Wasonga.

Police recruits will now go for a 15 months of intensive training at Kenya police college, Kiganjo.

This is part of the on going police reforms targetting to improve service delivery to the public.

Addressing the press at Kisumu’s police divisional headquarters,a senior assistant  commissioner of police Mr. Francis Ndegwa Muhoro said the extension of the duration  was identified as one of the critical areas which needed to be looked into while implementing police reforms.

The SACP said the curriculum will also be reviewed to enable officers who under- go the trainings to be more suitable in serving the public diligently and responsibly so as to meet  the international set standards of policing.

In the current program, police recruits  train for  nine months,a scenario which has seen many  Kenyans raise concern with the duration claiming  graduand officers were  half-baked.

In line with the  reforms , a team of senior officers from the police Headquarters are currently visiting  various parts of the country to carry out  customer satisfaction survey on  the Kenya police service delivery trend.

The three weeks survey which kicked off  last week is meant to evaluate the customer satisfaction in the Kenya police service with a view of recommending remedial actions.

According to Mr.Muhoro,this is part of an effort to support the wider public sector reforms which under-scores good governance based on a transparent, accountable and performance driven civil service.

There are two sets of questionnaires which the team distributes to both members of public and police officers to fill in and give their comments on how police services have been rendered in the past and changes they would want to see included in order to make service delivery prudent.

So far the western region team which is led by Muhoro and assisted by chief inspector Rachael Munge has been to Kitale, Busia and Kakamega. From Kisumu the team moves to Kisii and Nakuru in Rift Valley province.

The survey targets two districts per province in the country and is part of the commitment that the police commissioner Mathew Iteere made when he took office from his predecessor retired major general Hussein Ali .

The government has so far began implementing some of the recommendations in the Justice Philip Ransley’s report on police reforms.The reforms targets police housing, improved terms and conditions of service including fair remuneration among others.

ENDS.