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Simplified police command structure crucial – IPOA

MANAGING THE POLICE RESPONSE AT COUNTY LEVEL

Kenya is currently undertaking substantial police reforms, but these have lagged behind those in institutions such as the Judiciary.

The IPOA report said the provisions of a new law governing police operations needed to be put into practice.

It also recommended that the Inspector General of police appoint a single commander at county level who would oversee all the officers and units needed to respond to an attack.

Such a solution is provided for in the National Police Service Act, but according to Tom Kagwe, an IPOA board member, “The Inspector General has been unable to do this. What he has done is say that he has a team of three commanders [at county level] who work as a team. But our Mpeketoni report did not see this teamwork.”

These county commanders would have powers to deploy whatever units they needed without seeking authorisation from Nairobi. In addition, they would also have a direct line of communication with the Inspector General for the purpose of engaging specialised units.

At the moment, each county has three separate police commanders who oversee the different entities that make up the National Police Service. The county heads of the Kenyan Police Service, the Administration Police Service and the semi-autonomous Criminal Investigations Department all report to national police headquarters in Nairobi.

The commanders of the Kenyan Police Service and the Administration Police have no right to issue orders to each other’s officers. Nor can they engage the specialised armed officers of the GSU or RDU without first getting authorisation from police headquarters in Nairobi.

Police officers interviewed by IPOA during its inquiry said the operation in Lamu highlighted the problem.

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“Kenya Police commanders lamented that they cannot directly issue operational orders to officers from the Administration Police Service and specialised units such as the GSU,” the report said. “These units have to obtain approval from their national headquarters before embarking on any operation.”

The report also noted that the existence of different command structures created confusion about who was actually in charge of the operation.

Kagwe told IWPR that the Mpeketoni attack exposed dangerous weaknesses in the policing structure.

“These [county] commanders can never give commands to any others other than the unit that they come from,” he told IWPR. “This is the quagmire we are in. It is bringing a lot of chaos.”

Last month, a report by the International Crisis Group said: “There needs to be clarity and agreement on who does what,” Cedric Barnes, the group’s Horn of Africa analyst, told IWPR.

The appointment of County Commissioners has added an additional layer of complexity. These officials are the Kenyan president’s appointed representatives at county level, and they have a mandate to report to him on security matters. As such, they have significant power and can summon the police to meetings on security matters. However, they have no prescribed role under the national police law.

The IPOA report argues that County Commissioners should have no control over the police, instead leaving the work to one County Police Commander.

“We are in this situation where we have civilians exercising powers that they don’t have,” Kagwe said.

(This article is part of IWPR’s Kenya Security series. It was produced as part of a media development programme implemented by IWPR and Wayamo Communication Foundation in partnership with Capital FM)

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