The Maraga report is nothing more than empty talk. Nothing will come out of it.
Compensation should be based on what professionals do because there is nothing like harmonisation.
Police officers should be paid a lot higher that KDF officers because they do a lot of work. The police work directly with the people and their role is crucial for societal harmony by enforcing law and order.
A police officer investigates and arrests a lawyer, doctor, petty village thief, cracks complex crime webs. The work involves complex energy-sapping assignments and calls for creativity. Some investigations can take decades.
You must pay police officers such wages as to earn the respect of the diverse array of people they serve.
Police officers are counsellors, sometimes they arbitrate and most times resolves conflicts besides fighting crime.
Some of the work they find themselves doing is not in their job description.
There is a yawning gap in pay grades, but you don’t respond to it by asking for harmonisation.
Every service should make their case for a living wage and allowance commensurate with the work they do.
It is crucial to appreciate here that police officers have their commission that handles their compensation and working environment challenges, just like teachers.
Also, if you hire a doctor, a lawyer, a journalist or an engineer into the police or prison service, pay them a salary that is in line with their training and trade.
The point that the team should be making is that for such professional cadres we regularise their compensation across the armed services.
I have read the report and I find it underwhelming, not just in this aspect, but in many other areas because they just look at things at face value and recommend proposals that cannot be implemented.
For example, they recommend that the police transfer policy be reviewed so that officers are not in one station for more than three years. That looks unlikely because there are many factors at play.
An officer in a station needs time to understand the dynamics of the local community for better preventive, rather that reactive, policing.
Retired GSU officer and security expert spoke to the Star
