Implement new pay package for police

Once again, there are murmurs of discontent within the police force over pay. Despite the recommendations of a taskforce and a promise by Internal Security Minister Prof George Saitoti that salaries in the force would be improved, nothing has happened.

In light of matters elsewhere, this oversight assumes negative proportions. The fact that taxpayers would have to fork out Sh3 billion in salaries to various commissioners each year, if the wage demands of the Constitution for Implementation of the Constitution are the trend, is indeed worrying.

It exposes the huge disparity in salaries across the entire Government, and why impunity successfully beats back every attempt to bring it into submission.

To understand how ridiculous the matter is, take the case of the police constable who currently earns a measly Sh18,155 a month. It gets worse if he or she is married or a single parent in these harsh economic times. We use police in general terms to include the Administration Police.

While the salaries of lowly constables have remained static, those of most senior Government officials have not.

These poorly paid officers are the same individuals expected to stand guard day and night over offices and residences of well-paid Government officials, including commissioners, and to protect ballot boxes in elections and national examination papers.

Granted, the world is not fair and it would be ridiculous if not impossible to expect a constable to earn the same as, say, a permanent secretary.

But is it asking too much for the Government to implement the report of the National Task Force that reviewed police salaries and recommended what, by today’s standards are actually very modest increases?

Two things prompt our concern. First, the CIC commissioners are not looking very good in the eyes of the public when they appear to be demanding salaries that even CEOs of some of the wealthiest companies around can only dream of.

While it is certainly not on the same scale as the wage increases by MPs and their refusal to be taxed, it does place a question mark over the CIC commissioners whom many have been looking up to as the moral compass of the new Constitution.

It is assumed that their wages will be taxed as required by the Constitution, and their net pay will be much lower than imagined, but they still lose out in the court of public opinion.

If a fool and a genius both get drunk, shed their clothes and jump into a public fountain, one can be forgiven for not being able to tell them apart.

The public mood is such that even House Speaker Kenneth Marende has had to fend of criticism over his stance on the demand by Kenya Revenue Authority that MPs pay tax on their salaries. This is despite the fact that indeed, the legislators have some reason to claim treachery on the part of the two principals.

However, because they have sunk so low in the eyes of the public, they have received little sympathy, and there have even been sighs of relief that for once, they were outsmarted in their own game.

The police force also does not fare very well in the court of morality due to the entrenched corruption and rising cases of indiscipline and involvement in armed robberies among its members.

But when viewed in the larger equation of things, the demands of the poorly paid constable that has to guard premises of well paid Government officials day and night — and is often forced to run demeaning errands for some of these senior officers — do not look too exorbitant.

Of course, this is no excuse for the rampant corruption in the force that has perennially placed them atop Transparency International’s Corruption Index, but it does come close to a mitigating factor when you consider the anger that builds up in a police officer who puts his life on the line every day for a mere pittance.

Better educated

There is another reason to worry. Because of the high level of unemployment, more and more university and college graduates are opting to try their luck in the police force.

If such individuals were to get disgruntled down the line, and opt to become criminals to fatten their wallets, they are guaranteed wreak complete havoc in society.

The Office of the President, under which the Internal Security Ministry, and by extension the police, falls has one of the highest votes in the annual Budget, yet those we charge with fighting crime and ensuring safety must threaten a go-slow to get noticed.

Certainly, increasing police pay will not end corruption in the force, but at least it will put the latter at a disadvantage when it comes to looking for mitigating factors.