Kenya Police Announce 7,000 Vacancies Ahead of Elections

The Kenya National Police Service has announced 7,000 vacancies for recruits as it moves to beef up the capacity of law enforcement officers in the run-up to the March General Election.

This will be the second batch of recruits that will be trained under the new curriculum which increased the course period from nine to 15 months and raised the entry bar for those seeking to join the service.

The employer, the newly-established National Police Service Commission, says 4,000 of the successful applicants would be posted to the Kenya Police and the others to the Administration Police.

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“The National Police Service Commission seeks to recruit suitable and qualified candidates who satisfy the provision of the Constitution, the enabling Acts and the additional criteria to be trained as Police Constables,” said Johnston Kavuludi, the chairperson of NPSC.

The recruitment is expected to boost the police-population ratio and enhance the officers’ capacity to deal with security challenges emerging from Kenya’s continued engagement in Somalia and tensions surrounding the General Election set for March 4.

The recruits will be selected on November 22 at district centres, according to a public notice published in Wednesday's Daily Nation.

More than 200 people have died since the beginning of the year because of inter-ethnic conflicts a result of competition for scarce resources and robbery in major urban areas.

In September, about 118 people were killed and a further 13,500 displaced in clashes between the Orma and Pokomo communities in Tana River County.

On Monday, a cattle raid in Samburu left 13 people dead following heavy clashes between the residents and the rustlers.

The recruits will graduate with a Diploma in Policing Science after the 15-month drill except for a tenth of them who will be taken through a six-month leadership and management training to qualify as inspectors.

Kenya has about 70,000 law enforcers, translating to a police- to-population ratio of 1:551 against the United Nations optimal ratio of 1:400.

This means there would still be a shortfall of about 19,500 police officers after the recruitment.

The forthcoming poll is expected to strain the service further with each of the 40,000 polling centres expected to be manned by two police officers.

This would commit the entire police force.

Finance minister Njeru Githae allocated the NPSC Sh2.5 billion in June this year to cater for the recruitment of additional 3,500 police officers.

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