IG nominee vows to steer reforms

National Police Service Inspector General of Police Nominee Hillary Nzioka Mutyambai during his vetting session before the National Assembly National Security Defence and Foreign Relations and Senate counterpart Joint Committees at County Hall, Nairobi. [Boniface Okendo/Standard]

Inspector General of Police designate Hilary Mutyambai has pledged to fast track the ongoing National Police Service reforms to conform to the international best standard.

He also promised to uphold the Constitution and other laws and deal decisively with rogue officers.

Issues of runaway corruption, ethnicity, extra judicial killing, organised gangs and impunity within the service dominated his vetting exercise.

The spy chief who was being interviewed by a joint committee on security from the National Assembly and Senate was bombarded with a number of questions to state how he plans to deal with the issues raised.

“My objective is to ensure under my command the service will strive to uphold the highest standards of professionalism, accountability and respect to human rights,” said Mutyambai in response to concerns by MPs over dented image of the service.

He continued, “I am not easy to compromise. I believe in high integrity and that’s what brought me here. I will uphold high standards of integrity to serve as an example to other officers. I will reject any inducement.”

He promised not to victimize those officers who engaged in graft in the past but enhance the internal affairs desk and Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) to help identify rogue officers.

Model operation

He went on, “I will treat every officer as a clean officer. I will engage all of them to agree on our model operation. From there, I will start monitoring them to identify the corrupt officers and direct action.”

He supported move to implement lifestyle audit of all police officers in the corruption purge.

The co-chairs of the committee Senator Yusuf Haji (Garissa) and Paul Koinage (Kiambaa) in guiding the vetting process also stressed on re-emergence of extra judicial killings, corruption among all cadres of officers and ethnicity.

“Corruption runs from the lower to the highest cadre. Some officers will even sabotage those senior officers fighting the vice. How will it be addressed especially in the traffic department?” asked Koinage.

Haji expressed concern that fingers are being pointed at the police for failing to uphold the rule of law and sought his strategy to restore public confidence in the service.

Senator John Sakaja (Nairobi) and Koinange dwelt on the issue of one community dominating the top positions within the service or deployed in a particular area.

“I make a commitment to Kenyans that I am not a Kamba IG. I will be serving all Kenyans. I have worked in all hierarchy in the service and NIS and it has not been an issue,” he told the lawmakers.

The MPs also repeatedly sought his commitment to end extra judicial killings, which they regretted to note has re-emerged during political events and among the unemployed.

“Each officer will be held liable for their actions,” Mutyambai said.

The MPs took issue with officers’ welfare, competing interests by specific units like Administration Police (APs) and regular police, police reservists, county governments’ askaris, private security and private gun licensed holders.

Challenges Mutyambai assured he would tackle.