Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) troops should be downscaled to save billions of taxpayers because Kenya is not at war, lawyer Donald Kipkorir has said.
With over 28,000 troops, millions of money is used for recurrent expenditure and logistics in the defense forces, a move which Mr Kipkorir says ends up taking over Sh100 billion annually.
His sentiments comes amid uncertainty over the exit of Chief of Defense Forces General Samson Mwathethe, whose term expired last week on Wednesday. President Uhuru Kenyatta has powers to extend his term by one year but that could be a tall order given that the country is not at war.
“It will be difficult to pin-point outstanding achievements which can be associated with him (Mwathethe),” Mr Edward Wanyonyi, a graduate of war studies from King’s College, London, says about the General.
During Mwathethe's tenure, KDF has struggled to contain Al-Shabaab militants. The military suffered huge casualties in El-Adde in 2016 after over 200 soldiers were killed by the militants.
Some other casualties were reported in Gedo region where 60 soldiers were killed in 2017. But Kenya stopped financing troops in Somalia after they joined AMISOM under the African Union.
"Do we need KDF in the State it’s now & gobbling Kshs. 100B annually? .... Kenya needs a small elite expeditionary Force Of less than 20,000 men who should never grow stomachs .... We then enter into Defence Treaty with US, UK & Israel ... We’ve no enemies except Al-Shabaab," he said.
Kenya Army has the highest number and they operate on ground. Kenya Air Force follows and the Kenya Navy in that order. Within the forces, we also have elite squads which are trained abroad.