It’s illegal to pay police ‘facilitation fee’ to attend court, says vetting team

It is illegal to pay any police officer facilitation fees for them to testify in court, the National Police Service Commission has said.

This emerged during the vetting of police officers at the Kenya School of Government in Mombasa on Tuesday.

Chief Inspector Shem Omollo told the panel that most times lawyers paid “about Sh4,000 to 5,000” facilitation fees for the officers to attend court.

NPSC Commissioner Mohamed Murshid, however, said this promotes corruption and bribery within the force.

He noted that this was the trend countrywide.

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) representative in the panel confirmed that lawyers always gave a fee to facilitate police officers to attend court.

“If you want your matter to continue in court and want the officer to testify because of mutual liability, then you facilitate [with Sh5, 000], for that day,” the lawyer said.

PAID TO SERVE

Commissioner Ronald Musengi, at the same time, condemned the payment of the fee saying that public service officers are paid to serve and going to court was part of their duty.

“This is another way of encouraging corruption and it must stop. We condemn it with the loudest voice possible from where we sit,” Commissioner Musengi said.

Mr Murshid said the Police Service will work together with LSK to curb the practice.

“We need to pair up with the LSK to really understand this issue of paying officers to come and give testimony in court. What we know (is that) normally, if you are to come to court you are issued with summons. Especially for a public officer, you must abide by the summons.

“If you start oiling the wheels for them to come there then you will be inducing officers to go against court summons,” Mr Murshid maintained.