Promoted police officers set to earn lower salary

On Saturday, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Martins Okoth-Ochola, promoted 3,097 subordinate police officers, but some officers will have to earn salaries less than what they have been getting while at lower ranks.
Since 2018, lower rank officers , Constable, Corporal and Sergeants have been earning more money in salary than Assistant Inspector of Police and Inspector of Police, who are above them by rank.

The lowest ranking officer, a police constable, earns Shs470,000 per month followed by a Corporal, who earns Shs530,000, and a sergeant, who gets Shs570,000. 
The next officers in ranking are Assistant Inspector of Police and Inspector of Police, who earn Shs456,000 and Shs520,000 per month respectively.

At least 404 sergeants, who were promoted to the rank of Assistant Inspector of Police, will be affected. The sergeant although promoted to the next rank of Assistant Inspector of Police, will get Shs100,000 less than what he or she has been getting.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said the salary anomalies will be corrected by the Public Service Ministry.
“The issues of salaries are for the Public Service not the police. They did a salary enhancement in phases and started from the low ranking officers.

“They were supposed to move upwards, which is yet to be done. It will be done,’’ the Mr Enanga said.
The spokesperson of the Public Service ministry, Mr Joseph Ngobi, said this would be improved or rectified. 
“For now, they will get less than what they have been getting. But when the salary enhancement is done for the non-commissioned officers, they will get more money than what they were getting while on the previous rank,” Mr Ngobi said.

In 2017, the government enhanced the salaries of officers between the rank of Constable and Sergeant. They were expected to enhance that of non-commissioned officers, like Assistant Inspector of Police (AIP) and Inspector of Police (IP), but didn¹t due to financial constrains.
This left a Police Constable earning more money than an Assistant Inspector of Police, who is three ranks above him or her.

Non-commissioned officers verbally complained to IGP Ochola about the anomaly and he responded that those inspectors that aren’t contented with the salaries should put it in writing so that he demotes them to lower ranks, whose officers are getting more pay.
None of the officers wrote to him.
In the Saturday promotion, 336 Assistant Inspector of Police officers were promoted to the rank of Inspector of Police. At least 1,099 corporals were promoted to the rank of Sergeant.

Police also promoted 1,258 police constables to the rank of Corporal. 
Mr Enanga said 2,566 promoted officers were male while 531 were females.
He added that the promotion was based on performance, current responsibility, leadership abilities and command abilities. “We also looked at the time spent on the rank, discipline and length of service,” he said.

At least 1,258 officers, who had stayed on the rank of Constable for 14 years and above, were promoted. 
According to the report, 1099 corporals that had stayed on the rank for nine years and above were promoted to Sergeant while 404 officers, who had stayed on the rank of Sergeant for 10 years and above, were promoted to the rank of AIP.  
Some of the officers had experience spanning 31 years and have been in specialised units.