An impromptu operation has exposed recruits who used forged academic papers to be enlisted as police constables in the National Police Service (NPS).
According to a report released by the office of the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), a crackdown conducted at the National Police College main campus based in Kiganjo on Wednesday, June 15, exposed a high forgery level scheme within the service.
DCI states that during the impromptu operation conducted to verify academic papers, ten recruits were caught up in the forgery syndicate.
A report forwarded by former Nairobi regional commander Jepheth Koome to the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) discovered that the ten had forged the Kenya Certificate for Secondary Education (KCSE).
KNEC report detailed that the recruits who had already beat the system had altered their grades to match the requisite requirements listed by NPS.
"Investigations into their forged certificates indicated that some subject grades and mean grades had been deliberately altered to match the needed minimum requirements for joining the service," a report by DCI explained.
Following the revelation, the ten were immediately dismissed from the service and their courses at Kiganjo also terminated.
According to a report filed by DCI, the apprehended recruits were among 5,000 police constables, recruited in March this year, as part of the government’s efforts to increase the ratio of Police to civilians in order to improve service delivery.
"After their arrest, the fake documents were confiscated and kept in safe custody as exhibits, to used as evidence against them in court. The suspects have since lost their slots in the service, after failing the integrity test and three months of rigorous training," DCI stated.
According to the police, due diligence is a routine process that recruits are compelled to undergo every year to authenticate their academic qualifications.
Any person willing to join police service must possess a minimum mean grade of D+ with fluency in spoken English and Swahili.
This comes even as Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i sounded an alarm over fake academic papers during a meeting with diplomats on Thursday June 16.
"It’s unfortunate that men and women are spending whole days debating whether or not some people went to school. The question of whether one possesses clearly stipulated requirements should be a straightforward yes or no issue," Matiang'i stated.
