Cancelling police recruitment will punish the poor
What you need to know:
- For too long, corruption has been an exclusive sport for the rich but now even the wretched of the earth have pitched their hats into the ring, see who is complaining.
- Bribes for recruiters demonstrate a commitment to serve one’s country and provides proof of belonging. There cannot be much sense in recruiting poor people with no sense of wealth to be guardians over life and property.
Parliament this week joined the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority and the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy in smearing the police recruitment with allegations of bribery. They have congregated into a whingeing choir of whiners demanding the cancellation of the entire exercise.
For too long, corruption has been an exclusive sport for the rich but now even the wretched of the earth have pitched their hats into the ring, see who is complaining. Rich people do not want poor people to help themselves or even to be helped.
Just because MPs did not sneak their relatives and sycophants’ children into the recently concluded police recruitment is no reason to cancel the entire exercise. Now, they are complaining that they were not consulted about those who were recruited.
The anti-corruption agency has not executed a single arrest; IPOA has not reprimanded a single police recruiter, and Cord has not exposed one recruit who should not be in the police force but has been selected by dint of corruption.
It would only be objectionable if incapable people had filled recruit positions, locking out capable ones. Given that 100,000 young men and women wanted to join the police – and there were only 10,000 places this year – it must be obvious that picking the fleet-footed over the flatfooted and selecting people with dazzling smiles over those with discoloured teeth would hardly reduce the number of qualified recruits to the vacancies.
Many of those complaining about the recruitment have no idea how the police work. Kenyans want police to have a pleasant personality but complain when cracked and discoloured teeth are discouraged; they demand an agile police service but whine when recruits are tested for speed. They want police officers who are alert round the clock but object when recruitment interviews continue until 2am. These are only competence and suitability tests.
CORRUPTION REDUCES GUESSWORK
The payment of sweetener money to the recruiters is a measure of competitiveness. Despite its bad reputation, corruption is the lubricant that oils efficiency and reduces guesswork for youth who want to serve their country.
Bribes for recruiters demonstrate a commitment to serve one’s country and provides proof of belonging. There cannot be much sense in recruiting poor people with no sense of wealth to be guardians over life and property.
Police work is dangerous, and it requires commitment and dedication – not just from the officer but also from her or his family. What better way to demonstrate one’s willingness to die for their country than to pay a small fortune?
The demonstration of seriousness is also an introduction to the incentives system over which the recruits will preside once they graduate from the police college. If recruits know that bribes are discouraged, they would hardly sign up for duty, seeing how every other day the lives of those who serve in uniform are in peril.
Cancelling the exercise would be anti-poor and would only marginalise the thousands of people who had sold their property to enter the corruption market. A fresh recruitment, complete with advertisements in national media, allowances for recruiters and fresh higher bribes, would only place a further burden on the weary taxpayer.
A cancellation of the recruitment would also demoralise police recruiters who look forward to this one event in the year to make good on not being able to serve in other departments. Since the recruitment was a victimless crime, it should be allowed to stand.
