Police recruitment exercise to be done afresh, court

Nairobi - The controversial police recruitment exercise has been cancelled and must be done afresh, the High Court has ruled.

The ruling was made Friday in Nairobi by High Court judge Isaac Lenaola who said that after a complete audit of the process, it was found that there were too many irregularities.

This follows a case filed by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority IPOA seeking to have the process overturned and started afresh due to the very high number of irregularities.

The 10,000 recruits were thus denied the chance to head to training centres.

Lenaola said that sub-county committees across the 36 recruitment centers nationwide contravened the constitution and the National Police Service Commission Act thus his decision.
He said that the only way the process would be reconciled is by having it start afresh.

According to Lenaola, the National Police Service Commision lacks the authority to mandate the sub-county recruitment committees to conduct the process thus making it illegal and void of any integrity.

Added to that, results from some of the centers were inconsistent with the requirements of the recruiting institutions, he added.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority had filed the case asking the court to invalidate the entire process following numerous complaints about the selection of recruits.

The NPSC had said that it would only re-do the recruitment process in some centres it said showed signs of corruption.