Police still top watchdog’s bad books

By Peter Orengo

The Police force still tops the list of departments failing to respond to public concerns.

In the latest report complied by the office of Public Complainants Standing Committee (PCSC), police failed to respond to 106 correspondences sent to them by the Ombudsman followed by the Ministry of Labour at 63 cases.

Nairobi City Council is third at 59, while Provincial Administration came fourth with 58 cases not responded to.

Main complaints registered in the last quarter included delays 91 complaints, injustice 65, misuse of office 48, unethical conduct 31, inattention 20, inefficiency 11 and 51 others complaints.

Speaking during the launch of PCSC quarterly report, Committee chairman James Simani said the ombudsman had so far resolved 24 per cent of the 2,372 complaints received from the public since July 2007.

Marked rise

Mr Simani said: "Following intensive media publicity and advocacy campaigns undertaken in the latest quarter, there was marked rise in the number and nature of complaints received by PCSC from the financial year ending June 2009."

He said the actual figures rose by 21 per cent to 2,061 necessitating PCSC to source for interns to assist in handling the complaints.

"The causes of non-responsiveness vary from the excusable, the partially excusable to the completely non-excusable," Simani said.

The Immigration Department was praised for reducing complaints against it to almost zero.

This was because the department has put in place measures to ensure employees adhere to their service charter.

The chairman said in most Government ministries there were hardly any systems to handle complaints or formal method of tracking them.

Private companies partially owned by Government were also notorious in ignoring inquiries by the office of the ombudsman.