Interior ministry gets biggest share of Sh3trn budget

A Kenya Defence Forces’ armoured vehicle captured in Eldoret town on January 26, 2016. The KDF has secured a substantial chunk of the budget. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Kenya’s military spending, which crossed the Sh100 billion mark in 2017, has been ranked the sixth largest in Africa.
  • Part of the billions will go towards the installation of 3,200 CCTV cameras in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret.

It will cost taxpayers Sh325 billion to keep the country safe in the new financial year as the Jubilee administration continues massive expenditure across various security agencies.

The spending will jump 11 per cent in the new fiscal year, up from the Sh293 billion spent in the current year that ends on June 30.

The Interior Ministry, which also coordinates government functions, will receive the lion’s share, getting Sh140 billion, up from Sh125 billion.

Part of the billions will go towards the installation of 3,200 CCTV cameras in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret.

The government also intends to start equipping the national police forensic laboratory, enhancing the scope of Government Chemist laboratories, putting to effect the newly gazetted administrative units, rolling out the 3D identity cards and automation of 31 million archival fingerprints registration records.

POLICE WELFARE

The rest of the money will be shared out between the National Police Service, Administration Police (AP), GSU and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI). The three will cumulatively share Sh100 billion.

But the biggest winner is the DCI, which has been leading in the fight against corruption. It is set to get Sh7.1 billion, up from Sh6.4 billion.

Additionally, the DCI field services will receive Sh3.4 billion, up from Sh2.6 billion last year.

The National Police Service will lose Sh2 billion, down from Sh48 billion to Sh46 billion, while the AP will get Sh37 billion, up from Sh30 billion last year.

The GSU is also set to gain with an allocation of Sh9.5 billion, up from Sh8.7 billion last year, while the department correctional services will get Sh26 billion, with most of it to be used to run the country’s 122 prisons, which are grappling with swelling inmate numbers.

PEERS' BUDGET

But the bulk of the money allocated to security will go to the military and the National Intelligence Service (NIS), whose spending, veiled in secrecy, has been growing for the past five years.

The NIS has been allocated Sh36.6 billion, up from Sh31.2 billion last year, while KDF will get Sh121.6 billion, up from Sh111 billion last year.

Kenya’s military spending, which crossed the Sh100 billion mark in 2017, has been ranked the sixth largest in Africa, though the country is not at war, something experts have consistently warned is not healthy.

Data released recently by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent global security think tank, shows that Kenya’s defence budget continues to dwarf its peers in the region, creating the fear that it might spark an arms race.