President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration is set to award police officers aged above 50 years and in the new police reforms.
This action plan of awarding police officers aged and above is viewed as one of the action plans aimed at ending inequalities in the police service.
An action plan by the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) shows that aging constables without disciplinary cases will benefit from the promotions set to be concluded by July 17, a move that will help them boost their pension worth ahead of their retirement at 60.
And in another gesture aimed at boosting fairness in the service, half of officers who have served for more than 10 years in hardship areas will be transferred to other stations.
Mr Kinuthia said the promotions would be structured to benefit all officers drawn from the Administration Police Service (APs), the Kenya Police Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
“The planned promotions will be aimed to heal the acrimonious rift that occurred in the recent regular police and Administration Police merger where the latter felt cheated since it had more senior ranks that were demolished in the process that left the service deeply divided,” Mr Kinuthia said.
As part of the changes, several posts were abolished — ending decades of parallel command in the APs, regular police and DCI.
Posts abolished include the AP regional commander, regular police regional commander, DCI regional commander, county coordinating commander, regular police county commander, AP county commander and DCI county commander.
Overall, more than 24,572 AP officers were marked to join the 39,680 regular police in General Duties (GD) — raising the overall number of officers in GD to 64,252. The GDs were previously a preserve for the regular police. Officers in GD focus on public safety and security.
Mr Kinuthia said a new formula would also be introduced to ensure balance in appointing Officers Commanding Stations (OCSs) on whose shoulders the merger placed accounting authority.
“This is to make sure there is balance between those to be appointed to the position from the AP and the regular as well as from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
“This will play fidelity to new harmonised command structure under the reorganisation framework to make sure all the departments have a fair share of the OCS appointments,” he said.