RUNDU – Inspector General of the Namibian Police, Joseph Shikongo says he is inundated with promotion requests from some senior officers despite their poor performance.

The police chief said some senior police officers have been writing him letters requesting recognition and promotions instead of working hard for the system to recognise them.

He said their reasoning of having been in the force for many years is not a prerequisite for promotions but rather hard work.

Shikongo made the remarks yesterday while officiating a capacity building workshop for the country’s A Class police station commanders.

He encouraged the station commanders to make use of the workshop so they can improve on the poor service delivery at their stations.

He said some stations are offering the worst service, giving the Namibian Police a bad name to the extent that some community members have lost faith in the police.

“Some of you were promoted because of your hard work; Some of you have been writing endless letters but then when you go to your stations, you see members that are under you that have been serving as constables for 20 years, but they are not being promoted,” he said.

“Honestly, I am not expecting chief inspectors to write letters to me saying they need to be promoted to deputy commissioners; promotion is not something that you demand, you need to earn it. There are people writing letters asking for them to get heroes’ medals, who told you that you are a hero? Some write that they are hardworking; who told you that you are hardworking?”

Shikongo reiterated that it should be a system that must recognise officers that deserve promotions but not the time they have served in the particular rank. 

“I always refer to myself, I have been a chief inspector for nine years and a deputy commissioner for nine years, and I have never written a letter to anybody demanding a promotion. There was a time in 2004 when I received a letter of promotion to a deputy commissioner rank and it was revoked within a month, and some people said why can’t you take them to court? Why should I take the government to court? The offer that I was offered in 2004 and revoked has turned into something else. Today here I am, it’s not like I was pushed by somebody; it’s because of my hard work. I never wrote a letter to anybody,’’ he said.

The police chief encouraged the 36 workshop participants to grasp the knowledge and go back to their stations and empower their subordinates to improve their performance to serve the public better.

“This training programme is in line with 19 decisions that you have taken at the Rundu, Sarusungu senior command conference in 2022. 

One of the resolutions of the conference was to capacitate police officers at their different levels.

Nampol has since then started the programme with deputy commissioners in Swakopmund last year, and they also had two courses at the Namibian Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM). In December, 22 more deputy commissioners received capacity training in Tsumeb and in October last year and they held training for further nine commissioners in Otjiwarongo,’’ he said.

The workshop facilitated by NIPAM started yesterday and will end on Friday.

- jmuyamba@nepc.com.na

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