News
Is Obama following in the disliked footsteps of Bush in East Africa?
Obama’s pointman: Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and former US Ambassador to Kenya Johnie Carson at a press conference in Nairobi on May 12. Picture: Stephen Mudiari
Posted Monday, June 29 2009 at 00:00
A total of $10 million would be provided in fiscal year 2010 to help special units in national armies counter terrorism threats emanating mainly from Somalia.
Suspicious individuals attempting to enter Kenya could be screened more effectively, the Obama administration argues, if Congress approves a request for $54.6 million to upgrade a Terrorist Interdiction Programme.
Kenya and 17 other countries are being given computerised watch list systems designed to help them quickly identify travellers thought to have associations with groups such as Al-Qa’ida.
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will be helped to purchase US weaponry through proposed increases in the Foreign Military Financing programme.
The Obama team seeks $1 million for Kenya in the coming fiscal year — four times what is being made available through the financing programme this year.
Tanzania is slated to receive $200,000 and Uganda $300,000 to finance arms deals with US suppliers.
Neither country is funded in the current year.
The US would also expand training for Kenya’s and Tanzania’s armed forces under Obama’s budget proposals.
The president is calling for slightly more than $1 million in such assistance to Kenya, compared to $770,000 currently provided. Tanzania’s military training allocation would rise to $400,000 from $300,000 while Uganda’s would drop from $625,000 to $550,000.
The Obama Africa budget also contains hundreds of millions of dollars for US soft-power programmes in East Africa.
The US would allocate $571 million to support USAid and State Department anti-HIV/Aids and child-health initiatives in Kenya in the coming year.
Development assistance to Kenya would meanwhile be increased to nearly $77 million in the coming year.
Tanzania is expected to receive a total of $362 million in health funding and almost $30 million in development aid.
The corresponding figures for Uganda are $332 million and $71 million for the respective programmes.
Significant increases in development aid for the East African countries are offset to some extent by Obama’s call for an end to Economic Support Fund appropriations for Kenya and Uganda.
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