Almost a month since new police boss David Kimaiyo was sworn in, the official Kenya Police website still indicates that retired police commissioner Mathew Iteere still heads the force.
The Kenya Police website seems not to have been updated in the last month, as it still bears a message from Iteere, raising questions as to just how tech-savvy the Kenya Police team is.
According to a survey done by the HumanIPO team, already the portraits of Iteere in police stations have been replaced with Kimaiyo’s.
The site may have been neglected for even longer, with the last press release uploaded onto the website in April 2012, following a leaked video broadcast on NTV news showing police officers torturing a young boy in Turkana.
Traffic updates, promised every two hours, have also been seriously neglected, with no updates posted on the site.
“The Kenya Police will update the status of traffic on our major roads (in Nairobi) every two hours, excluding Sundays. This is aimed at assisting motorists to choose routes to follow in order to avoid any inconveniences’. Our obligation is to ensure free flow of traffic. Have a nice ride,” a statement on the site reads.
The Kenya Police Twitter page @kenyapolice however, unlike the website, seems to have received frequent updates, though the last tweet was on January 19, with a few retweets on January 24.
Although the website’s upkeep might not necessarily indicate levels of police alertness, it pokes holes in the force’s credibility as a news medium and its utilisation of ICT.
Efforts by HumanIPO to contact former police spokesman Eric Kiraithe or deputy Charles Owino were not successful.
