About 20 recruits have been dismissed from Lilayi Police Training College for being pregnant and allegedly presenting fake examination results, among other breaches of regulations of the training programme. According to a highly placed police officer who sought anonymity, the recruits were dismissed between September last year, when the training programme started, and this month.

“The offences which the affected recruits were dismissed for include theft, presenting fake results, being under-age and pregnancies for ladies,” the source said. A majority of those with fake examination results were dismissed at the beginning of the training programme when qualifications were being scrutinised. The pregnancies were only discovered during the course of the training and these ranged between one month and five months.

“The latest recruit was chased just a few days ago when it was discovered that she was five months pregnant. “Health personnel just came without the recruits knowing and all of them were made to do pregnancy tests,” the police officer said. He said it is unfortunate that the recruit was discovered pregnant few months before the training programme could come to an end. When contacted over the matter, Inspector General of Police Kakoma Kanganja could neither deny nor confirm the dismissals.

“Whether it’s true or not that the recruits were chased, I can’t confirm or deny, but in any training there are rules,” he said. Mr Kanganja said there is need to train police officers who will provide quality services to Zambians. He said misbehaviour by police recruits or indeed professional police will not be entertained. “We want to mould a proper police service and not one with thieves or those who want to misbehave,” he said. Mr Kanganja said there is no room for misbehaviour in the police service for as long as he remains in charge.

“People have been complaining about the behaviour of some officers and all this starts at the point of training,” he said. Last year, Government selected over 1,000 people aged between 18 and 30 to be trained for police service. The recruitment period is expected to end within the first three months of 2019.