At total of 56 senior Rwandan police officers were fired for allegedly direct involvement in corrupt practices and other unethical behaviors over the last ten months, according a police source revealed Tuesday in Kigali.
In June this year, Rwanda’s cabinet meeting chaired by President Paul Kagame decided to dismiss 20 senior police officers who were the majority at the rank of Superintendents and Chief Inspectors of Police (CIP) after they were found guilty of corruption and bribery.
It has also been revealed that among people sacked include a young policeman convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm in a public place in Kigali.
The purge in Rwanda’s police force comes a few months a non-governmental organisation for the fight against corruption and economic embezzlement, Transparecy Rwanda revealed in a recent report that it was extremely worried by the high levels of corruption among policemen and local administrative authorities in Rwanda.
Although Rwanda has maintained its position as the least corrupt country in the East African region following a series of anti-corruption measures that were put in place in the country, analysts say there is still a “significant problem” although a number of serious penalties have been set out in the national legislation with the government’s increasing efforts in implementing them.
The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report released by Transparency International in 2018 ranked Rwanda with 56 points, among the top 48 best performing countries in the world out of 180 surveyed.
President Kagame, who has made the fight against corruption a major platform for his third five-year administration, has dropped more than a dozen ministers for failing to live up to expectation.
Sources said the Rwandan police officers who were sacked would also lose their pension rights.
CU/abj/APA