GARISSA COUNTY: Leaders in Garissa Tuesday decried the recruitment exercise of police officers in the area want it repeated alleging that it was marred by prejudice and favouritism.
Speaking to the media in Garissa town, Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) Abdullahi Salat, who was one of the observers, claimed that some three slots out of twelve were slated for a specific community.
“We were told that three of the slots out of the 12 positions to be filled in the regular police were reserved for a certain community with senior people in the top of the national police service” he claimed.
“When we enquired why some slots were left out for applicants to compete for as required by the recruitment procedures we were told that it was a directive from above by the recruiting officers and we want to know who these so called people are from above” he said.
The Supkem chairman said despite the local people appreciating that Garissa was a cosmopolitan town “we are shocked why a government official will give a discriminating directive, which is likely to spark animosity between the local and other communities from outside the county.” He said.
Mr Salat said many youth who turned up in large numbers to enlist left dejected after being locked out by the selective directive despite them being qualified to join the service.
This he said will cause unnecessary tension and mistrust among communities in the country who had coexisted peacefully for many years, adding that it can be a recipe to the occurrences of mistrust and conflict akin to what is currently experienced in Lamu County.
“We thought recruitment into the national police service was an open competitive drive for all communities in Kenya, but we have found to the contrarily, which specific people or community are preferred through illegal directive to recruiting officials, who are junior to them” he thundered.
A senior officer in the recruiting panel who decline to be named for fear of his job said:
“As a recruiting committee we were not happy but we were to adhere with the directive from Nairobi. You don’t expect us to turn down a directive from a senior person particularly when it is written and jointly come with the recruiting procedure manual unless you are looking for trouble with your bosses.”
The officer said the directive only affected the Kenya police while their administration counterpart recruited twelve officers as required.
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