Shock as police officer is caught on CCTV stealing money from exam invigilators
A police officer is under investigation after he was caught on video allegedly stealing money from female invigilators at a secondary school in Bomet County.
The incident is alleged to have occurred at Kimulot High School in Konoin constituency on Monday, with the local police alleged to have taken no action after a complaint was made.
The policeman had been posted to the school to man the administering Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) by invigilators engaged by the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec).
Stashing it into the side pockets
According to security camera footage that has gone viral, the police officer in full uniform and armed with what looks like an AK-47 rifle is seen walking into a room where the teachers had kept their handbags and other personal effects.
The video footage extracted from school CCTV cameras shows the officer sitting on a sofa set before he ransacked the handbags suspected to belong to female invigilators.
He is seen removing what looks like money from the bags and stashing it into the side pockets of his trousers in the footage that lasts 1:37 minutes.
The officer is also seen returning the handbags to their previous positions before striding out of the room.
It is said that the teachers realised after the exams paper had been administered on Monday that their money was missing from the handbags they had left in the room.
“We have dispatched officers from the county headquarters to the ground to verify the information that is now in the public domain. We are trying to verify whether or not the incident occurred in the school so that appropriate action can be taken,” a senior police officer at the Bomet County headquarters told the Nation.
The amount of money the officers took from the teachers has not been made public yet, with senior officers at Mogogosiek sub-county police headquarters, the nerve security centre for Konoin constituency, declining to speak to the press.
To curb cheating, Knec has banned invigilators from carrying any items into the classrooms including phones when candidates are writing their exams.
Entering the examination rooms
As a result, invigilators are provided with a room where the personal effects are kept with the students being frisked before entering the examination rooms in all the institutions across the country.
The personal effects are usually handed back to the owners at the end of the exam session.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Bomet branch executive secretary Malel Langat and his counterpart from the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Paul Kimetto have demanded immediate action to be taken against the culprit.
Provide security
“Police are expected to provide security in the examination centres, but when they abdicate their duties and turn into petty thieves, it lowers the credibility of the service in the eyes of the public. It is a very sad case that needs immediate remedial measures to be taken,” Mr Langat said.
“We shudder to think how many members of the public have suffered at the hands of the rogue policeman. And that is not to say the entire force comprises indiscipline officers. There are many exemplary cases of highly disciplined officers in the service.”
Mr Kimetto said the fact that the officer was captured on CCTV committing a crime against the people he should be protecting was a serious one that should see the suspect not only arrested and prosecuted but also sacked from the police service.
