By Daily Revelation Editor
Today we are being confronted with another secret recruitment exercise of 3000 people in the police service. However, for those who may not be aware, this is not the first time this is happening as such secret recruitments have been going on for a long time.
In November 2024, this newspaper reported about another ‘secret’ recruitment of 1000 officers.
Inspector General Graphael Musamba actually indicated that 4000 officers were recruited, contrary to 3000 that had been announced to Zambians.
When we contacted Musamba at the time, he justified the recruitment and added that people should not be disqualified from employment just because they are related to someone in government.
He said this when responding to information that police had secretly recruited 1000 police officers with connections to senior government and UPND officials.
Impeccable sources in the UPND administration had told Daily Revelation that the 1000 recruitment was being referred to as the “presidential list”, the name commonly referred to whenever recruitments were not announced to the public, and that the list was mainly associated with recruitments of mostly party cadres and those connected to senior government and ruling party officials.
“The other problem is that the new recruits are being taken in the midst of the training programme that started several months ago, meaning they will not even be trained properly. The number has shot beyond the capacity of the instructors, so they won’t even be well trained. We shall have half-baked police officers,” sources said. “The training started about 8-9 months ago then you join for the last half. This has now resulted in more police officers being drawn from various stations to go and help with the training. If you took a visit even to Lilayi you will find that some officers have actually been transferred there in the recent past due to the over enrollment and shortage of tutors.”
But Musamba said the recruitment was done in February 2023 but was withheld for some time on account of funding, saying it was evident that while the others were doing the recruitments there was none announced from the police.
“What we did was a big number. We did a big number. Now, from that big number it meant that funding if it comes in piecemeal, you recruit, you get from the reservoir of recruitments, what we recruited and put them on training … Of course there was another funding that’s why from the reserve of recruitment those people were taken and they were taken to Lilayi as recruits,” said Musamba. “Some people would think that it is secret recruitment. It’s not, because if you say it is secret recruitment you are saying that the police had done their recruitment in the mid-term like June when everybody was recruiting.”
Asked on information that most of those recruited came from senior officials in the police, government and ruling party, Musamba said when the recruitment was done it cut across “everybody.”
“We still have a backlog of recruitments that was done but we can’t fulfil the number because of funding. Some people will want to understand things that they want to understand. But the bottom line is recruitment was done in February and this was advertised in the newspapers. When these other people were doing recruitments, the police were not involved because they had done already,” said Musamba. “And the number, you want to know the number that was done? We received applications up to about I think more than 30,000, yah. How many were selected? About 4000. We have about 4000 recruits from Kamfinsa, Lilayi and paramilitary, we have about 4000 in total.”
That was the interview we had with Musamba. At that time, he claimed the police picked from among the over 30,000 applicants. The argument is being made even today that the new 3000 new recruits was aimed at filling in the various vacancies. We have difficulty taking that explanation to be true. And even if the exercise was meant to fill vacancies, even from those who had already applied, it still can’t discount the fact that this is a new recruitment as new officers are being hired in order to fill in the purported vacancies. By that argument alone the exercise should have been announced to the Zambian public.
There are just so many holes in the police explanation. And even if it was about filling vacancies, who recruits all that number just to fill vacancies?
While all this is happening, the government seems to be playing ignorance as if they were not even aware about this exercise. Like really? Which public official in this country will have the temerity to recruit 1000 people, or even 3000 without the government knowledge? If they claim not to have known about this then it raises a lot of questions about their own efficiency and ability as government. Since they seem to be playing ignorance, then we demand that they should take action against the police authorities for undertaking such a huge national undertaking without the authority of the government.
Related
By Daily Revelation Editor
Today we are being confronted with another secret recruitment exercise of 3000 people in the police service. However, for those who may not be aware, this is not the first time this is happening as such secret recruitments have been going on for a long time.
In November 2024, this newspaper reported about another ‘secret’ recruitment of 1000 officers.
Inspector General Graphael Musamba actually indicated that 4000 officers were recruited, contrary to 3000 that had been announced to Zambians.
When we contacted Musamba at the time, he justified the recruitment and added that people should not be disqualified from employment just because they are related to someone in government.
He said this when responding to information that police had secretly recruited 1000 police officers with connections to senior government and UPND officials.
Impeccable sources in the UPND administration had told Daily Revelation that the 1000 recruitment was being referred to as the “presidential list”, the name commonly referred to whenever recruitments were not announced to the public, and that the list was mainly associated with recruitments of mostly party cadres and those connected to senior government and ruling party officials.
“The other problem is that the new recruits are being taken in the midst of the training programme that started several months ago, meaning they will not even be trained properly. The number has shot beyond the capacity of the instructors, so they won’t even be well trained. We shall have half-baked police officers,” sources said. “The training started about 8-9 months ago then you join for the last half. This has now resulted in more police officers being drawn from various stations to go and help with the training. If you took a visit even to Lilayi you will find that some officers have actually been transferred there in the recent past due to the over enrollment and shortage of tutors.”
But Musamba said the recruitment was done in February 2023 but was withheld for some time on account of funding, saying it was evident that while the others were doing the recruitments there was none announced from the police.
“What we did was a big number. We did a big number. Now, from that big number it meant that funding if it comes in piecemeal, you recruit, you get from the reservoir of recruitments, what we recruited and put them on training … Of course there was another funding that’s why from the reserve of recruitment those people were taken and they were taken to Lilayi as recruits,” said Musamba. “Some people would think that it is secret recruitment. It’s not, because if you say it is secret recruitment you are saying that the police had done their recruitment in the mid-term like June when everybody was recruiting.”
Asked on information that most of those recruited came from senior officials in the police, government and ruling party, Musamba said when the recruitment was done it cut across “everybody.”
“We still have a backlog of recruitments that was done but we can’t fulfil the number because of funding. Some people will want to understand things that they want to understand. But the bottom line is recruitment was done in February and this was advertised in the newspapers. When these other people were doing recruitments, the police were not involved because they had done already,” said Musamba. “And the number, you want to know the number that was done? We received applications up to about I think more than 30,000, yah. How many were selected? About 4000. We have about 4000 recruits from Kamfinsa, Lilayi and paramilitary, we have about 4000 in total.”
That was the interview we had with Musamba. At that time, he claimed the police picked from among the over 30,000 applicants. The argument is being made even today that the new 3000 new recruits was aimed at filling in the various vacancies. We have difficulty taking that explanation to be true. And even if the exercise was meant to fill vacancies, even from those who had already applied, it still can’t discount the fact that this is a new recruitment as new officers are being hired in order to fill in the purported vacancies. By that argument alone the exercise should have been announced to the Zambian public.
There are just so many holes in the police explanation. And even if it was about filling vacancies, who recruits all that number just to fill vacancies?
While all this is happening, the government seems to be playing ignorance as if they were not even aware about this exercise. Like really? Which public official in this country will have the temerity to recruit 1000 people, or even 3000 without the government knowledge? If they claim not to have known about this then it raises a lot of questions about their own efficiency and ability as government. Since they seem to be playing ignorance, then we demand that they should take action against the police authorities for undertaking such a huge national undertaking without the authority of the government.
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