Kimaiyo said officers found engaging in corrupt dealings will be prosecuted and relieved of their duties for bringing the service into disrepute/FILE
Kimaiyo said officers found engaging in corrupt dealings will be prosecuted and relieved of their duties for bringing the service into disrepute.
“I think it is due to the physical presence of police officers on our roads and receiving some money which is even not worth mentioning. Somebody is receiving Sh20, Sh30, Sh50 or Sh100 and that actually tarnishes the good name of the service.”
The Inspector General has therefore asked members of the public who witness officers receiving bribes to capture evidence of the illicit transactions on their mobile phones.
“We are going to be more strict, especially from our headquarters on those involved in this kind of menace and some people will soon be appearing in court and finally they will be able to be removed from the service.”
Those who hand over under the table payments have also been put on notice with Kimaiyo promising that they too will face the full force of the law regardless of whether or not it was the officer who demanded the bribe.
“We want to remove this issue of corruption from the service once and for all. It is no longer routine as usual. We have to take this one very very seriously and I want to issue that warning to both the givers and the receivers,” Kimaiyo said.
The National Police Service was ranked the most corrupt Public Institution by TI Kenya in its contribution to the 2013 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer.
TI Kenya conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,121 respondents between October and November of last year in order to make the rankings based on the shared experiences.
The police service got a score of 4.8 on a scale of one to five with one being, “not corrupt at all,” and five being, “extremely corrupt.”
Parliament came in second with a score of 4 and the Judiciary rounded off the top three with a score of 3.6.
The majority of Kenyans said they pay bribes to, “speed things up,” with, “it was the only way to obtain service,” being the second most common reason.
And while 68 percent of those interviewed said they were willing to report incidents of corruption, 52 percent of them doubted outing corrupt public officials would make a difference.
About The Author
