Okiya Omtatah moves to court to revoke promotion of 514 police officers

Celebrations by recently promoted police officers could be short-lived after a senator moved to court to challenge the process.

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah and activist Michael Otieno in their petition filed at the High Court argues that Inspector General Japheth Koome did not follow the right procedure in promoting the 514 police officers and wants the court to suspend the promotions.

"The promoted officers were arbitrarily handpicked and largely skewed towards two communities, cronies and relatives of senior officers. Some of the beneficiaries had not even completed the mandatory three-year stay in one rank before being promoted to the next," said Omtatah.

According to Omtatah, the IG violated the constitution and the National Police Service Act by sidestepping the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), which is the body mandated to recommend promotions of police officers.

The Senator submitted that after Koome unilaterally made the promotions on June 5, the NPSC commission denounced the development and declared that the IG has no powers to effect the promotions.

The commission had also faulted the IG on account that the promotions were undertaken without advertisement to give all police officers equal chance and directed the Principal Secretary to refrain from implementing any promotion announced by Koome.

He added that on June 9, the commission advertised for the same 514 vacancies but the IG immediately dismissed the advert and warned police officers from applying for the position.

"This has caused a turf war between the IG and NPSC with bare knuckles public fight which has split the police service down the middle and is affecting innocent police officers who are due for promotion but are now caught up in the middle as the subject of the turf war," said Omatah.

The senator also wants Chief Justice Martha Koome to appoint a three judge bench to determine who between the IG and NPSC has powers to promote police officers.

He wants the bench to determine the confusion created by Article 245(4)(c) of the constitution which states that no person may give a direction to the IG in employment and promotion of officers and Article 246(3)(a) which vests the power of appointments and promotion to NPSC.

He stated that the IG cannot act unilaterally in appointing and promoting police officers because he is part of the nine-member commission that sits and decides on promotions, welfare and other personnel matters.

"The law on appointed and promotion was enacted to stop the office of the IG from being abused given our history where the strong and mighty misused the police command to employ, assign, promote, suspend or dismiss any member of the National Police Service," he swore.

He added that where promotions are delegated to the IG, the Commission must be notified in writing and the process must follow the guidelines laid down by the commission, which has the power to revoke them if the rules are not followed.