A parliamentary committee was yesterday told that interviewers in the recent police recruitment had been instructed on how many people to pick from each ethnic group in a sub-county.
The National Police Service deputy director of personnel Kitoo Kapchanga said the formula was based on the number of officers in the service from all the 42 tribes in Kenya.
Mr Kapchanga, who had accompanied National Police Service Commission Chairman Johnstone Kavuludi and Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo to a meeting with the National Assembly’s Administration and National Security Committee, which is investigating corruption allegations in the recruitment, said that to determine the number of slots available, they got the number of officers from that tribe in the service, divided it by the total number of officers in the service, and then multiplied it by 10,000, the number of recruits they wanted.
The deputy director of personnel said the recruiting officers were then given the information on the available slots in each sub-county.
Given this formula, he said, a candidate was more likely to be recruited if they showed up at their home sub-counties, formerly known as districts.
Mr Kavuludi said the population was based on the 2009 national census and that the formula was used for affirmative action and to ensure the recruits were from all regions and tribes.
Members of the committee, however, described the formula as academic and impractical given that some parts of the country are cosmopolitan. They also termed it as the source of corruption in the exercise.
“It sounds very academic and I believe it is impractical. It’s very sweet, but it never works. Tribes are not bound by formulas,” said MP Ibrahim Saney of Wajir North.
MPs Patrick ole Ntutu (Narok West, URP) and John Waluke (Sirisia, Ford-Kenya) said based on the number of ethnic groups in their constituencies, it was difficult to see how the recruitment would have been fair.
Ms Wanjiku Muhia (Nyandarua County, TNA) said the commission should resign for coming up with a skewed and opaque process that ended up with widespread corruption.
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