Senior police officers in traffic department give their juniors a target on the money to be channelled to their accounts.
This is according to National Police Service Commission (NPSC) chairman Johnstone Kavuludi.
He pointed that the recent vetting exercise revealed the complex corruption networks between junior officers and their seniors.
“Through a scrutiny of M-Pesa statements, the commission was able to establish that junior officers working in the traffic department regularly transferred fixed amounts of money to some of their seniors, suggesting that they had been given targets,” Kavuludi said.
Kavuludi was speaking on Wednesday in Nakuru at the Dog Section during a day-long sensitisation forum where he assured police officers in lower cadres of impartiality in the coming vetting process.
He stressed that the exercise is enshrined in the constitution in transforming the force to a service urging the officers to submit their vetting forms. He added that there will be no witch hunting during the exercise.
Kavuludi said that in the last vetting results, police officers were found unsuitable for a variety of reasons which included human rights abuses, criminal activities and corruption. Other vices among the police included obstructing the course of the criminal justice system, human trafficking, smuggling, forgery of academic certificates, submission of fake bank statements and M-Pesa statements, unprofessional conduct and failure to provide documents or information required by the commission.
“Let me assure all police officers and our stakeholders that the decisions of the vetting process will be arrived at after a thorough process and strict adherence to the vetting regulations and standards,” he assured the officers.
Kavuludi pointed out that the commission will continue engaging with key stakeholders with a view to finding solutions to issues that tend to impede the vetting process. In addition, he said that NPSC has reviewed its vetting model so that officers will be vetted according to their formations and functions as opposed to the current rank-based approach.
He further noted that the vetting exercise unearthed a conspiracy where officers with high-level professional training and vast experience are currently performing duties outside their fields of specialisation and are hence underutilised.
In particular, he noted that it has become evident that a good number of police officers are involved either in the transport or security business.
“This information will be helpful while developing regulations on the type of trade or business that police officers can be authorised to engage in by the commission,” said Kavuludi.