Face-Off Looms Over Use of National Youth Service

(The Nation (Nairobi))

A showdown looms between the Kenya Police and the National Youth Service over training facilities at the Gilgil NYS training college.

A special quota of 5,000 NYS graduates scheduled to be inducted into the police force were supposed to be trained there.

Although the recruits and their regular police, General Service Unit and administration police trainers had reported to the Gilgil NYS camp on February 18, 2008, training has not started almost a month later.

The Internal Security permanent secretary,Mr Cyrus Gituai, was unavailable for comment.

The 2,060 successful NYS graduates who were recruited for the joint training have so far only had their original certificates authenticated.

Some 4,000 recently recruited NYS recruits who had begun training at the Naivasha NYS camp have now been moved to the Gilgil NYS camp contrary to earlier arrangements.

Trainers from one of the police units who had been deployed to Gilgil were recalled to their stations in Nairobi on Monday in protest against the new development at the camp.

A senior regular police officer in charge of police recruits training, Mr Gerald Oluoch, travelled to Nairobi on Wednesday to express his concern to his seniors at Vigilance House.

A source at the camp said trouble began after the regular police, AP and GSU officials rejected 3,000 of the NYS graduates because they did not meet the police recruitment requirements.

The rejection of the 3,000 NYS graduates is said to have angered the Gilgil NYS management who then decided to move all their recruits back to the camp.

Attempts to contact the National Youth Service director, Mr Japhet Mwania, were unsuccessful as he was reported to be in a meeting the whole day.

The recruitment of NYS graduates into the police force failed to achieve the targeted 5,000 after only 2,060 NYS graduates met the standard police recruitment requirements.

The police recruiting officers have been accused of demanding bribes from the NYS graduates before picking them. However, Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe insists that only 2,060 of the 5,000 targeted graduates qualified.

Mr Kiraithe said he was not aware of any stand-off at the Gilgil NYS training camp.

He said that no one has been withdrawn from the Gilgil NYS camp.

Although the 37 barracks for male recruits and 11 for female recruits have already been prepared at the NYS training college, training of the 2,060 recruits has not started.

However, the 4,000 NYS recruits who were inducted in late February and were scheduled to begin their five-month training at the Naivasha NYS training camp are now being trained at the Gilgil camp.