Tokura: We can’t afford to have officers retire

Acting Police Commissioner Francis Tokura, pictured, says they will keep the officers reaching retirement age because of a lack of manpower throughout the country.
“We will still keep them because we don’t have enough young officers,” he said.
“We will only retire officers on medical grounds.
“But then, they still cannot retire because there are no funds to pay their entitlements and their repatriation expenses.
“We have already done the submission to the Personnel Management Department for them to be paid out.
“But we are holding them back because of funding issues as well.”
Tokura said this yesterday at the police headquarters saying they had identified over 500 officers who had reached the compulsory retirement age of 60.
“Under the Police Force Act, we have a retirement age of 60 for assistant commissioner and
ranks below but those officers are still working and only some have been stood down on medical grounds.”
Tokura said even if the force were to retire those officers who qualified it would create a big vacuum in the force in the command structure with many of the positions in middle management – sergeants, chief sergeants, police station commanders and shift commanders.
“Even though they have reached or are at the retirement age they are still physically and mentally active and some want to move on and pursue other careers outside of the Force,” he said.
Tokura said the force had also halted recruitment of intakes at the Bomana Police Training College because there were no funds to train them.
He warned that the current population growth had the potential to set the force back in terms of manpower to cater for a growing population.