• First venue was a school, prisons official says exercise would have interfered with learning.
• He says they started exercise purposely late to give all interested youths time to arrive.
Some Homa Bay youths who turned up for Kenya Prisons Service recruitment on Wednesday expressed disappointment after the venue was changed.
The youths, who had earlier been told to go to Homa Bay High School, were informed to travel about seven kilometres to Kabunde in Homa Bay Town constituency.
The youths, who sought anonymity, argued that their lateness is likely to cost them the job.
They had arrived at Homa Bay High School as early as 6am.
“This is a disciplined and competitive job opportunity where any slight mistake is not tolerated. We fear we may lose the opportunity because we were late by three hours,” one of them told the Star.
Assistant Commissioner of Prisons in Nyanza David Kiptoo told journalists at Kabunde that conducting the exercise at the school would have interfered with learning.
Kiptoo was in charge of recruitment.
“Such activities cannot be held in schools when students are in class. It would interfere with other programmes yet this is a disciplined force,” Kiptoo said.
The officer said they started recruitment at 10am to allow every interested youth to reach the new venue.
“We gave them enough time to allow everybody to reach the ground for the exercise.”
The assistant commissioner revealed that they needed four recruits including one female candidate.
“We turned away some candidates who came with photocopies of academic credentials. We made an announcement that we would only accept the originals."
Others were turned away because they were not area residents.
Edited by R.Wamochie