It has been revealed that the Kenya Defence Forces will get sh 24 billion to buy weapons in East Africa arms race. Nairobi will spend sh 23.7 billion on weapons acquisition for the financial year starting July for the race that has allegedly seen neighbouring Uganda increase its arsenal spending.
Following the big news, Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi has questioned what informs the rocketing budgetary defence needs for Kenya alleging that the new deal might contain personal ambitious schemes of reaping from public funds as officials have trended nowadays.
He gave Kenyans two questions; “(a) Genuine defence needs for a country in a tough neighbourhood, (b) 10 to 20% kickbacks for single sourced and opaque tenders contracts. Discuss (25 marks)”.
What informs the rocketing budgetary defence needs for Kenya? (a) Genuine defence needs for a country in a tough neighbourhood, (b) 10 to 20% kickbacks for single sourced and opaque tenders contracts. Discuss (25 marks) pic.twitter.com/06kxOZloXv
— Ahmednasir Abdullahi SC (@ahmednasirlaw) May 14, 2019
Budget estimates before MPs for review show that Kenya’s military spending will rise from the current year’s Sh 109 billion to Sh 121 billion in the financial year that starts on July 1.
Of the Sh 121 billion spending proposed for the Kenya Defence Forces, Sh 23.7 billion will go into buying military hardware in what the Treasury calls “defence modernisation”.
This is a sharp increase from the Sh 17.5 billion spent on the same in the current financial year.
Kenya’s heavy military spending is informed by the need to defend its territory against the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terrorists who have in the past targeted civilians and security forces in major towns as well as in border towns.
The data released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), an independent global security think tank, shows that the country’s Budget dwarfs its peers, with the Tanzania’s military spending last year rising to Sh 67.5 billion and Uganda Sh 40.8 billion.
Kenya does not make public its military purchases, and only Parliament is mandated to scrutinise the classified.