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Can the Police Change?

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION
March 24, 2004
Posted to the web March 24, 2004
Nairobi
Yesterday, internal security minister Dr Chris Murungaru announced that the
government had been given Sh77 million to fund reforms within the police force.
Murungaru, who has been heavily criticised for the insecurity prevailing in the
country talked in glowing terms about what the government is doing for the
police and what he expects the force to do in order to meet the expectations of
the people. Most poignantly, the minister said: "The ball will now be in the
police's court for them to build a law enforcement agency that departs from
regime policing to democratic policing by focusing its efforts on providing
services to the Kenyan people through the promotion of human rights,"
Few can argue that Murungaru's ministry has not made some efforts to improve
the lot of the police. They have had a pay increase after years of hankering
for it and, since Narc took over, there have been visible efforts to reequip
them.
In spite of all this, insecurity still prevails and poor services from the
force still remain one of the biggest complaints from Kenyans. The question is;
can the Kenya police change?
Recent events have persuaded FTF that the force can change. Yet others tell us
that this possibility is a mirage that recedes ever further every time we near
it.
First, there have been a few isolated cases where police officers have refused
to be bribed by matatu touts and traffickers of drugs. March 11 saw an officer
in Nakuru rejecting a bribe to allow a vehicle carrying bhang worth Sh 1.5 to
pass. Last month police arrested bus and lorry drivers in rift valley who
attempted to bribe them. Every time the media carries reports about officers
who have refused to be bribed, there is a gasp from an unbelieving public and
calls to reward the officers.
Yet if the force was working well, refusal of bribes among officers should be
the rule rather than the exemption. Officers who work well should be rewarded
but those who turn down temptations of malpractices should be seen as just good
ethical officers, not as angels who have gone out of their way to perform a
heavenly act. However, this offers us a glimmer of hope that there is still
some good in the force which can be marshaled to cause a complete change of
attitude among the officers.
But when one turns to areas like Ntonyiri, which is the subject of another
story on this page, one is disillusioned. In this place, officers have decided
to work closely with traffic rule violators. They are the relics of a
discredited, anti-people force that Kenyans are hoping can be got rid of.
Yes, the police can change. There are many good deeds done by police officers,
which are never reported. The bad they do is widely reported because it should
not be done in the first place. The good is expected and is therefore not a
story worth six inches in the papers. We long for the day when our police force
will, as Murungaru urged, build itself into a law enforcement agency that
focuses on providing services to the people.

   

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