By The Citizen Correspondent
In Summary
- Adjusted for inflation since 2011 SIPRI said Kenya spent $861 million compared to Uganda’s $465 million with Tanzania spending just $380 million
Tanzania is lagging behind its East African
partners in military spending, a new report shows. The country spent
just $380 million since 2011.
Uganda and Burundi led the rest of East Africa in
military spending last year allocating 2.2 and 2.3 per cent of GDP
respectively to defence with Kenya increasing her expenditure to the
highest level ever in nominal terms.
The two countries stayed ahead of Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda which spent 1.9, 1.2 and 1.1 per cent of their GDP respectively.
Uganda’s defence spending has stayed over 2 per
cent of GDP rising to 4 per cent in the last two decades, even as the
rest of the region made deliberate efforts to cut their spend in the
same period.
Data released on Monday by the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute shows that Kenya increased her
defence budget by Sh3 billion last year to Sh74.1 billion, the highest
in the region on nominal terms.
SIPRI is an independent international institute
dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and
disarmament funded by the Swedish government.
Kenya is faced with problems of terrorism, attacks
from Oromo militias in Ethiopia and piracy in the Indian Ocean that
have exposed the country’s military inadequacies.
“Due to the military “achievement” of KDF against
Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia, Kenya would most likely want to obtain a
greater influence on the political and administrative future of the
region,” said Sipri.
Adjusted for inflation since 2011 SIPRI said Kenya
spent $861 million compared to Uganda’s $465 million with Tanzania
spending just $380 million.
Kenya’s military spending had been ranging between
Sh20 and Sh30 billion in the early 2000s but had started rising to Sh40
billion after the country started modernising its military hardware
that culminated into the Anglo Leasing scandal.
Africa is the only continent whose military budget
stayed on a growth path as Europe, Asia and Americas cut their defence
budget in austerity measures.
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