An audit report by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has exposed entrenched corruption within the National Police Service, revealing how junior traffic police officers routinely collect bribes that are channelled up the ranks to their seniors.
According to the anti-graft agency, bribery in the traffic department is not random, but organised with officers assigned daily collection targets.
The audit has further revealed that the NPS suffers a malignant cancer of corruption that begins at the recruitment level, where the majority of slots are handed to wealthy individuals, politicians and top police officers.
The report says corruption runs deep in the police system and whenever recruitment of police constables is announced, cartels, rogue officers collude to divide available places among themselves and offer them to the highest bidders, making the exercise on the fields a mere charade.
This practice, so entrenched in the service leaves only a few positions for Kenyans to win on merit and despite qualifying the entrants are forced to pay hefty bribes, to be recruited into the service.
EACC released the report on Thursday at the National Police Leadership Academy in Nairobi.
Read more: EACC report puts National Police Service understaffing at 200,000
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