Police officers to be examined before promotion - KBC

Police officers will henceforth be subjected to an exams before being promoted.

The National Police Service Examination Board has been set up to administer the exams as a way of ending cases of discrimination and corruption in the promotion of officers.

Beginning May this year, there will be no automatic promotion but all officers seeking to be considered for progression will have to take an exam.

According to outgoing Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet the exams will be administered by the National Police Service Examination Board to create transparency and reward meritocracy in the service.

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A tweet by the National Police Service – Kenya says “It also establishes an examination system for NPS that ensures examinations are standard, uniformly applied, professionally managed and with high levels of integrity.”

The decision to have all officers trained through a similar curriculum as well as battled it out for better job rankings  was informed by the need for the citizenry to receive quality services in line with the global  policing standards.

The new initiative termed timely and will ensure competency in strengthening the work output of the officers.

The exams have been billed as the only way to end corruption in police promotions and also create a culture of constantly improving competencies among officers.

Union of Kenya Civil Servants

Meanwhile, the Union of Kenya Civil Servants has vowed to oppose by all means attempts by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to slash allowances for public servants.

The union claims all allowances earned by public servants are legal and negotiated and cannot be withdrawn arbitrary.

Following claims that the salary and remuneration commission is targeting to review 149 allowances paid to civil servants, the Kenya Union of Civil Servants is now protesting the move.

The union’s secretary general Tom Odege, terms any attempts scrap such allowances as illegal given that it was part of negotiated remuneration which cannot be dropped now.

the union instead wants SRC to first looked into the country’s inflation rate before seeking to raid the pockets of civil servants already struggling to meet their daily financial obligations.

SCR is said to be targeting to save 8.8 billion shillings annually from the allowances something the union says is not based on any report.