Amisom troops in Somalia. PHOTO | FILE
By AGGREY MUTAMBO
In Summary
- On Monday, the EU said it had not released the money to the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) due to complex approval procedures that had resulted from a constrained budget.
- Those cuts were to take effect from this month, but it has not released any money. It is supposed to be paying Sh224 million every month.
African Union troops in Somalia have not been paid
allowances for more than five months, as the effects of funding cuts by
the European Union bite.
On Monday, the EU said it had not released the money to the
African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) due to complex approval
procedures that had resulted from a constrained budget.
Mr Gary Quince, the head of the EU Delegation to the AU, told the Nation that a shortage of funds was the reason behind a pile of unpaid allowances.
“Funding cuts means there is a shortage and that has taken time
to get the necessary approvals to release the money,” the diplomat said
from Addis Ababa.
“It means decision-making takes long but we hope to get funds in a couple of months.”
The EU is the main financier of Amisom, committing about €1.2 billion ($1.33 billion) since 2007.
About half of that, €575 million ($634 million) has been used to
cover the forces’ allowances, costs for the police component of the
mission and international and local civilian staff salaries.
Early this year, the EU cut that funding by 20 per cent citing a constrained budget and new security needs.
Those cuts were to take effect from this month, but it has not
released any money. It is supposed to be paying $2.2 million every
month.
“We expect to reach an agreement with the AU by September, after
which the payment will be backdated to January,” Mr Quince said.
Lack of accountability
The European bloc cited budgetary approvals, but the BBC on
Monday reported that lack of accountability on the part of Amisom was
behind the funding delay.
An EU source told the BBC that the six-month payment was being withheld over “accounting issues”.
But Amisom head of Amisom Francisco Madeira told the BBC that
the correct papers to account for the last tranche released by the EU
had been submitted.
Sources say the EU wants some contingencies in Amisom to account
for money allocated in previous disbursements before any new funding is
released.
Uganda has already threatened to pull its troops out of Somalia.
On Monday, the Kenya Defence Forces spokesman David Obonyo said the soldiers had no problem with their allowances.
“Our troops are getting their allowances and if there were any
issues, we would be the first people to know,” Colonel Obonyo told the Nation by telephone.
An Amisom soldier is entitled to $1,028 every month. In the case
of the KDF, the government deducts an administration fee of $200,
meaning every serviceman takes home $828.
When the EU cut the budget by 20 per cent, every soldier lost
about $160 of the basic allowance. This shortage has affected
operations.
'A slowdown'
Last week, a senior US military officer told his country’s
senate that AU troops were not battling Al-Shabaab as effectively as was
the case in the past.
“In the past six months or so, there’s been a little bit of a
slowdown on the initiative of forces that are provided to Amisom from
countries like Uganda, Burundi and Ethiopia,” Lt-Gen Thomas Waldhauser
said.
“We expect activity to increase across the region during
Ramadhan,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is
considering his nomination as head of US Africa Command (Africom).
Col Obonyo said he could not determine the situation with other
troop contributing countries, but insisted that the momentum against
Al-Shabaab had not slowed down.
The KDF, with 3,664 troops in Somalia, is part of the
22,000-strong mission created in 2007 to help stabilise the war-torn
country. Uganda has the highest contingent of 6,223 troops, Burundi
(5,432), Ethiopia (4,395) and Djibouti (2,000)
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