A silent war to succeed Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo when he retires has emerged, pitting senior officers in the Kenya Police Service and the Administration Police Service.
The AP command are resisting a move by Kimaiyo to post several senior KPS officers to manage their department.
In a letter sent to the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) and the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC), the AP say that there have been discrepancies between the two services in personnel, deployment and budgetary allocations.
While the promotion of AP officers has been stalled for the last seven years, regular police officers have been promoted annually, leading to a disparity in senior police ranks.
Consequently, Kimaiyo has now prepared an initiative to redeploy several senior KPS officers to the APS.
“Promotions of senior officers in the AP Service have stalled for over seven years, yet Kenya Police have been promoting their officers year-in, year-out. This can be manifested by the disparity in ranking of senior officers where the ratio is almost 10:2. To make matters worse, right now, there are so many vacancies in the APS. The APS has highly qualified officers with a good number of them holding doctorate degrees. Yet instead of the IG and NPSC subjecting these officers to interviews to fill these vacancies, the two have schemed to bring in deadwood from the KPS to fill almost all the vacant senior positions in the APS,” the letter to the NPSC, CIC and IPOA says.
The police and AP each have one Deputy Inspector General. The police have two Senior Deputy Commandants (1) while the AP has one. The police Service has 24 deputy commanders as opposed to three from the AP.
There are 62 Senior Assistant Commissioners of Police (SACP) in the police as opposed to four in the AP and 87 Assistant Commissioners of Police in KPS while the APS have only 27. There are 373 Senior Superintendents of Police in KPS and 111 in the APS. KPS has 513 Superintendents of Police while the APS have 260.
“The current representation of the National Police Service is skewed to the disadvantage of the Administration Police Service. This is a fact that is proven by data from the payroll for proof. The Administration Police Service constitutes 44.33 per cent and the Kenya Police Service 55.67 per cent and this is the basis upon which all resources should be divided for the two services, more so for capital investments such as residential housing and camp and station infrastructure,” the letter to NPSC, IPOA and CIC says.
The AP have also lamented that, despite the fact they have the biggest presence in operational and hardship areas, their budgetary allocation has been drastically slashed.
While the KPS were allocated Sh10 billion for operations and maintenance this financial year, up from Sh6.1 billion last year, the AP got Sh5.7 billion, down from Sh7.5 billion last year.
The General Service Unit (GSU), who operate under the KPS, were allocated Sh1.9 billion while the Directorate of Criminal Investigation got Sh954.2 million, up from Sh869 million last year.
The Office of the Inspector General of Police was allocated Sh500 million. The Deputy Inspector General of the KPS was awarded Sh20.4 million for refined fuels and lubricants for transport while that of the APS Deputy Inspector General got Sh8.5 million.
While KPS divisional police commanders were allocated Sh145 million, their equals in the APS (field command and regional) were allocated Sh7.9 million.
