Kenya Defence Budget Allocation Set To Rise To USD 5.5 Billion By 2018

A fresh report has said that Kenya’s defence annual budget is set to hit the US $5.5 billion by 2018 that is an increase from US $4.3 billion in the past few years. The East African country is heavily investing in the Kenya Defence Force with acquisition of sophisticated equipment.

Kenya has acquired helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), armored vehicles, border surveillance and monitoring equipment.

Kenya is taking a mega step in equipping her forces with modern equipment that will help in fighting domestic and external terrorism, human and drug trafficking, arm smuggling and insurgencies. This will place Kenya on level or better position in fighting any security threat target at her.

Kenya has allocated approximately 2.4% of her GDP to the defence force that cumulatively totals to USD4.3 billion. The forecasted is expected to cumulatively get to USD5.5 billion by 2018.

Despite the Defence Forces budget the Home Land Security is set to increase too over the same forecasted period. This is attributed to then increased threat on the security of the country from vices like human and drug trafficking and the recently increasing arm smuggling.

Kenya is bordered by two insecure countries i. e South Sudan and Somalia and the need for better border surveillance to secure the porous borders especially the Somalia- Kenya border. The border between Kenya and Somalia especially because it is a weak link that lets the flow of the Al-Shabaab militants from Somalia into the country.

The monitoring equipment that is set to be acquired by Kenya is set to strengthen her security at the coast, her territorial waters and land to curb illegal activities that jeopardize her security. The move is driven by the fact that Kenyan coast is used as a transit point for international human traffickers to transport people and especially women from Africa and Asia to Europe and other parts of the world.

The budget is even much higher as the high power equipment needed will have to be imported rather than manufactured locally as the demand is high and cannot be net the very underdeveloped defence industry.

This increases in budgetary allocations for the Defence Forces is a huge boost in the security maintenance as the global terrorist threat is increasing immensely. Every state is busy investing in heavy artillery to be able to deal with the looming threat.