From matatus to bars; how top police officers spearhead elaborate extortion racket

A damning audit report has revealed how National Police Service (NPS) senior traffic bosses have given their juniors daily bribe targets.

The report shows that the junior officers are then deployed to go out and harass Kenyans as they collect the desired amount. Failure to reach a target means the officers will either be transferred to hardship areas or face trumped up disciplinary cases.

The report by The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was initiated by Inspector General Douglas Kanja. The systems audit report revealed deep rooted and organised corruption within the police service and was based on an audit conducted between February and June 2025, which aimed to identify systemic weaknesses and corruption loopholes. 

“In February, I personally invited EACC to our office and commissioned the audit. We invited them and gave them all the support they needed. I wanted to know where the problems in the police service are and how to solve them,” Kanja told The Standard.

He added, “The best way to solve a problem is to identify and then understand it. So, it becomes easier to solve it. We are working to fix the areas identified in the report.” 

The damning report reads like a horror story; “This practice has reportedly become institutionalized, with PSV operators routinely factoring these payments into their daily operating costs.” It further says that police officers have daily targets to meet from matatus and bodaboda riders and the money is at times channelled through saccos.

“Those who failed to remit the payments were allegedly subjected to arbitrary arrests and fabricated charges.” This corrupt practise determined who gets assigned traffic duties which was based on favouritism, bribery and nepotism. “For instance, it was reported that transfers to Traffic police unit and the positions of Officers Commanding Police Stations had ‘price tags’.”

Some officers ended up staying in stations for more than three years while some were in the traffic department without undergoing the necessary training. “At times, officers from the NPS general duties masqueraded as traffic enforcement officers and assigned themselves traffic-related roles, both within and outside their areas of jurisdiction. This was largely motivated by desire to solicit bribes from motorists.”

Interviewees in the report accused traffic officers of manipulating accident scenes while other demanded bribes to give abstracts and in some instances the officers deliberately gave erroneous entries in the occurrence books.

In some stations police bosses had more than one cash receipt books and at times the money collected was not being surrendered to the Sub County National Treasury.

The Standard established that various matatu saccos make monthly and daily payments to police stations for ‘protection’ to operate smoothly and avoid arrest when they flout traffic rules.

The corruption bug has also caught up with County traffic marshals, commonly known as Kanjos, in Nairobi’s Central Business District who position themselves in strategic areas for easy collection of bribes.

Matatu operators are also feeling the pinch, forced to part with bribes to operate on the roads. Interviews with officials of some of the Saccos reveals the huge amounts of money collected to line pockets of police officers and county marshals deployed to control traffic.

A manager at one of the popular Saccos plying the city centre and Ngong Road routes revealed that the vice is deep. The route has about 10 Saccos. The official said traffic officers who are strategically stationed between the city centre all the way to Ngong demand bribes ranging between Sh200 to Sh1,000.

“Every matatu is required to part with Sh1,000 protection fee per week and those that don’t comply land in trouble,” he said.

The route has about 200 vehicles. With each vehicle parting with Sh1,000 per week, it means the officers collect an approximate of Sh200,000 every week, translating to approximately Sh800,000 a month.

The effect is that indiscipline has crept back on city roads as police relax traffic rules in exchange for bribes.

“That is why you will find some vehicles operating without necessary documents, disrespecting passengers because Saccos no longer bother to adhere to the rules,” said another Sacco official.

The claims by Sacco officials are not farfetched.

Recently, the Matatu Welfare Association accused the traffic police department of complacence, accusing officers of rampant extortion. Association chairman Dickson Mbugua said the police and county askaris are robbing PSV operators of their hard earned income.

“A day to day operations of a PSV almost yields zero, the investments projected return, currently does not break even, leave alone anything to sustain operations. Currently, ‘kitu kidogo’ (bribe) demand by our law enforcers has become common on our roads countrywide,” lamented Mbugua.

“If you don’t comply, your vehicle is impounded and the driver arraigned in court with several trumped-up charges,” he said adding the bad culture will only be eliminated through digitisation of instant fines paid directly to the courts.

The corruption is not restricted to matatus as bar owners are also having it tough in the hands of police.

A bar owner who spoke to The Standard said that every day, policemen come up to four times collecting Sh100 a trip. This is considered normal.

“They pack outside the bar and the bartenders take the money. One can tell the irritation on their faces whenever the bar workers show some sign of delay,” the owner said.

The Sh100 fee is only for a “normal” day. “The four trips are just from the local police division. They say one is from the OCPD’s office, one from the Station commander, and two from the local police post.”

Neighbouring police command posts also do send their ‘boys’ quite often who say they were just passing by but their intent is to collect bribers for their bosses. “Then there is the twice-a-week visit by the officers from Nairobi Area, the regional police commander’s hub. Theirs is a modest Sh200.” According to the Bar, Hotels and Liquor Traders Association of Kenya (BHALITA) police officers are still collecting bribes in bars and pubs.

BHALITA Secretary General Boniface Gachoka says while they have about 54,000 members, small traders who are being harassed are about 13,000 adding that traders give bribes due to ignorance.

Gachoka says on a daily basis police officers collect Sh100 in bars and pubs, a move which he describes as thuggery. "Many traders oblige because they are afraid of losing license, in some cases those who don't part with bribes are harrassed," said Gachoka.

He added: "What the police are doing is thuggery, stealing from the traders thus exposing them to loses," 

Further, the ghost of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang who was killed on July 8, 2025, in police custody continues to haunt the National Police Service, according to the report.

By the time of Ojwang's death the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) was concluding an audit of the system, policies, procedures practises of the police.

Ojwang’s death came five days to the conclusion of this report.

At the time Kanja told the Senate that the teacher was arrested and moved from Homa Bay to Nairobi on allegations that he made defamatory statements on X linking Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat to corruption.

He further said that Ojwang alleged on X that DIG Lagat had placed officers in strategic stations and departments to ensure that money flows up the chain of command and was being probed by EACC alongside Joseph Chirchir.

According to the IG the smear campaign against his deputy went further to allege that he had purchased a property in Dubai and a fake Standard Newspaper with the headline “Mafia Cop” had been shared online.

“These claims were found to be defamatory and unsubstantiated and of significant public concern, thereby necessitating immediate investigations under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act No. 5 of 2018,” said Kanja. 

The report also found that NPS had a shortage of some 200,000 police officers which had affected their strength. The NPS strategic plan 2023-2027 shows NPS needs officers 306,590 yet it had 106,469 police officers. Those who left the service were around 3,229 and some 1,455 officers were undergoing a disciplinary process.

Other officers, 1,705, had been seconded to various government agencies. Some police officers in the lower cadre and with no disciplinary issues were not recognized due to the lack of academic qualifications.

The report found that Kenya Police Regional Commanders were the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police while the Administration Police and Directorate of Criminal Investigations were Commissioners of Police a rank lower than KPS.

“Further, in counties, the KPS County Commanders were at the rank of Commissioners of Police while the DCI and APS were Senior Superintendent of Police a lower Rank.”

Officers Commanding Stations were quoted saying that officers from APS who were absorbed into KPS were not conversant with police operations and the APS officers interviewed cited bias in duty allocation.

It further found some of the duties assigned to APS were being performed by KPS. ICT projects It found that NPS was at times in the dark over Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects undertaken by the Interior Ministry.

“It was noted that most of the ICT programs were often initiated, spearheaded and hosted by other government agencies,” says the report.

The report added that this led to a lack of ownership, poor implementation, systems underutilization and inefficient service delivery.

EACC says that this ends up becoming a misallocation of resources and corrupt practises in project implementation. For instance, in 2014, the Interior ministry inked a deal with Safaricom worth Sh19 billion for the provision of a secure communication network and surveillance system.

The Integrated Command, Control and Communication (IC3) system was rolled out in Mombasa, and Nairobi counties, and its environs. This project is however contentious since there was no arrangement for support or maintenance once the contract lapses and this led to regular breakdown, operational failure and security vulnerabilities.

“Despite the substantial investment, the system had not been fully utilized. Key components such as dispatch system, critical incident management suite and data analytics remained inactive or inefficient,” says the report.

EACC found that there was no documented plan to transfer ownership, data or technical knowledge to NPS once the contract with Safaricom expired which led to over-reliance on the telco.

“These provided opportunities for corruption, wastage of public resources, and poor service delivery.”

The report faults the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for using two email domains which it says may create confusion and result in duplication or misrouting of official correspondences.

NPS had its own official email domains but it was discovered that different offices and stations had and were using email accounts registered on public platforms like Gmail and Yahoo for official use. “This exposed sensitive information to security risks and undermined accountability.”

Additionally, the report found curriculum gaps in the training officers since that most training institutions did not carry out reviews of their training curriculum. For instance, the National Police Service Training College training curriculum that was launched in 2018 is to be reviewed to date.

The National Police Service Leadership Academy (NPLA) curriculum for leadership courses that take place at the Ngong based institution were yet to be reviewed since 2018. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations Academy uses a curriculum that has not been approved by the National Police Service Commission (NPSC). “Failure to carry out periodical reviews and ensure approval of training curricula may result to training on outdated policing practices.”

NPS does not have an examination board to set and maintain examination standards, assess and certify examinations for police officers. The report found that NPS was not taking post-training evaluations to determine the effectiveness of their training programs for informed decision making.

“Failure to undertake the evaluation is a weakness that may lead to mismatch between skills delivered and the needs in the security sector, and hinder NPS from actualizing its mandate.”

The report noted that police officers and National Police Reserve were not supplied with uniforms regularly with some only getting uniforms when they joined the service.

Kenya Police did not have a criterion for distribution of uniforms, in some instances the issuance was based on a nominal roll, others officers collected the uniforms from the main stores and others got them after inspection.

Some NPS officers wore uniforms belonging to the Kenya Defense Forces.

Traffic officers were not getting facilitated with protective gear in the line of work like gumboots and umbrella for use during harsh weather conditions.

“Some equipment such as helmets, body armor vests, and tear gas canisters in some sampled regions were expired.”

Also, the audit noted that the NPS was poorly managing firearms, for instance some police stations did not have designated armouries with firearms being stored in metallic offices in an office.

Armouries in some police stations had not been constructed to the required standard and approved designs like Iftin, Nambale and Matinyani police stations. “The officers in most sampled stations were not undergoing regular firearms training which could make it difficult for them to use the weapons.

A number of fire arms were also noted to be out of service due lack of spare parts.” The EACC report further found that rogue officers were hiring out firearms and ammunition to criminals.

There were reported cases of officers on duty using firearms to aid or engage in commission of criminal activities. Some officers were reported to have left their firearms unattended which created an opportunity for theft and misuse.

It further noted that some officers handling firearms when not in a sound state of mind due to intoxication, psychological disturbance among others.

Further, the report found that police did not have enough vehicles for operations with 50 per cent of police stations and 50 Sub County Administration Police Units lacking motor vehicle allocation.

NPS does not have a fleet management board to provide guidance which also found that government owned vehicles did not have trackers as compared to the leased ones.

Specialized units did not have adequate vehicles for their work and vehicles were allocated 450 liters of fuel monthly regardless of engine capacity or workload.

Some of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles which are used by specialized units are grounded due to the lack of spare parts locally. The spare parts are imported from South Africa.

Report by Fred Kagonye, Pkemoi Ng’enoh, Jacinta Mutura and David Odongo