By George Githinji
The National Police Service has on numerous occasions threatened to take part in go-slows in order to pressure the government to increase their salaries. Both the Kenya Police and the Administration Police (AP) have often lamented about being underpaid and under-resourced. The result of this blatant neglect of the police service by the government is severely reduced working morale.
The historical costing of the security function that annually increases the budget for national security has not correlated with the performance of the police service. It has not even increased their professionalism and working capability. Insecurity and crime has continued to rise and the situation exacerbated by recurrent terror activities that cause numerous deaths and extensive property damage.
In the current financial year, the national government allocated Sh10 billion for the purposes of police service modernization, Sh7.7 billion to cater for the leasing of police vehicles and Sh1.7 billion for the police medical scheme. However, police officers have rubbished these allocations saying that the national government should prioritize their salaries first. They accuse the government of failing to honor the agreement to increase their salaries by 42 percent.
The police service is not concerned with the huge operational budgets allocated to them by the government. They care more about how the government will motivate them to boost their morale and work performance. Poor pay is an inhibition to the police service implementation of the security policy. They do not need better houses, better vehicles, and better equipment if their remuneration standard is not improved.
The government should shift from giving more operational budgets to the police service and instead concern itself with how to work out the framework to improve their performance, morale and working environment. The first step towards achieving this is to honor their wishes and increase their pay.
A police officer earning less than sh20, 000 a month is left with peanuts to spend or save once the bulk of the money is taxed or remitted for other services like insurance and pension. The little they take home is meager to even support their families and household expenses. This motivates most of them to engage in corrupt activities to supplement their income.
The ways in which the government can boost police morale and motivation apart from revising their pay upwards is to educate, communicate, recognize and to treat them fairly. The police education curriculum needs revision and constant upgrading to be up to standard with emerging issues in the society and the security sector. They also need to have their skills constantly upgraded to implement their policies efficiently and effectively.
Recognition considers appraisal and rewards based on merit while communication should be positive and to the point. Fair treatment is ensuring impartiality, equivalence and lack of prejudice, for example, by guaranteeing fair administrative action if a police officer errs and upholding that the working standards are not favoring some officers over others.
This is a crucial lesson that the current government should learn and implement accordingly.
The writer comments on political issues in Kenya – blogs at Politics Kenya
[…] George Gĩthĩnji | June 19, 2015 | Security | 4 Comments In more than one occasion, the National Police Service has threatened to take part in go-slows in order to pressure the government of the day to increase their salaries. Some of these go-slows have materialized while some did not. Both the Kenya Police and the Administration Police (AP), the two wings of the National Police Service, often complain of being underpaid and under-resourced. The result of this blatant neglect of the police service by the government has severely reduced their working morale. One would be tempted to think that the historical costing of the security function that annually increases the budget for national security would correlate with the performance of the police service or even increase the professionalism and working capability of the Service. On the contrary, the reverse is the case. Insecurity and crime has continued to rise by the day and the situation made worse by the dawn of recurrent terror activities brought forth by the Alshabaab terror group, which has claimed numerous innocent lives and caused extensive property damage. In the coming financial year that begins in July 2015, the national government has allocated Sh10 billion for the purpose of police service modernization, Sh7.7 billion to cater for the leasing of police vehicles and Sh1.7 billion for the police medical scheme. However, some police officers have rubbished these allocations saying that the national government should prioritize their salaries first. They accuse the government of failing to honor the agreement to increase their salaries by 42%. Therefore, it is evident that the police force is not concerned with the huge budgets allocated to them by the government but utmost on how to boost their morale in order to improve their performance. Poor pay is an inhibition to the police service implementation of the security policy. They do not need better houses, better vehicles, and better equipment, if their remuneration standard is not looked into and as one police officer articulates, “Artillery and equipment may assist but you can’t fight inside armored vehicle when you are hungry, they will be useless…” The matter of better pay for the police services is one that the present and the previous national governments have often neglected or overlooked. The government is yet to learn the lesson and continues to allocate the national police service huge budgets every year. The government should hence shift from giving more money to the police service to working out the modalities to improve their performance, morale and working environment. The first step is to honor their wish and increase their pay, then create capacity and motivate effort from them. The Kenyan police force is one of the most corrupt and this behavior blamed on poor pay (and to some extent greed). A police officer earning less than sh20,000 a month, the bulk of which is taxed or remitted for other services like insurance and pension, leaves them with peanuts to spend or save. This is despite the fact that the police officers have families to feed, clothe and children to take to school. Some have houses to pay rent for, electricity and water bills to pay, among other myriad of expenditures. Others work in extreme hardships and expose their lives to danger and all they get is a mere sh20 a day as allowances! This is bound to be extremely offending and demoralizing. Some controversial blogging sites in the past exposed a case involving the elite Recce Squad, which portrayed how severely underpaid the team is. The ways in which the government can also boost police morale and motivation apart from revising their pay upwards is to educate, communicate, recognize and to treat them fairly. The police education curriculum needs revision and upgrading often in order to be up to standard with emerging issues in the society and the security sector. They also need to have their skills upgraded often in order to implement their policies efficiently and effectively. Recognition considers appraisal and rewards based on merit while communication should be positive and to the point and this is one area the media should strive to follow up in order to create a positive image for the Service, amidst the tone of fiascoes associated with the Service. Fair treatment is ensuring non-bias, non-disparity and non-favoritism, for example, by guaranteeing fair administrative action if a police officer errs and upholding that the working standards are not favoring some officers over others. Ultimately, the government of the day is judged by the manner in which it strives to protect its citizens, since security is the most important political good that the state is mandated to provide to its citizens. The citizens should strive to pay taxes and the government should ensure that the budgetary allocations to the police force recognize the significance of need, capacity and effort in order to ensure value for money. (See an abridged version of this article here) […]