Tuesday, January 22, 2013
By KEVIN J KELLEY
PHOTO | AU-UN IST PHOTO | STUART PRICE | FILE This handout photograph released by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team on October 3, 2012 shows soldier serving with the Kenyan Contingent of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) looking out at the southern Somali port city of Kismayo. AFP
NEW YORK - Kenya has urged the United Nations Security Council to pay the country for its military contribution to the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom).
Kenya’s ambassador to the UN Macharia Kamau urged the world organisation to make “timely and total reimbursement” as failure to do so was “unacceptable and unsustainable.”
Speaking during a council debate on UN peacekeeping activities, Mr Kamau did not specify how much Kenya was owed but only said the country had received “a fraction of the millions of dollars committed by this council.”
Terror attacks
The Nation has learned, however, that the UN agreed to pay Kenya Sh11.5 billion ($132 million) by July this year but has so far paid Sh82.4 million ($947,000).
“Countries spend significant amounts of money preparing troops, maintaining readiness and deploying expensive equipment to support given mandates,” Mr Kamau said.
Kenya sent troops into Somalia in October 2011 following a series of terror attacks on Kenyan soil said to have been carried out by forces operating from that country.
The UN Security Council, which partly finances the Amisom operation, approved Kenya’s participation in the 17,000-force in a resolution adopted in February 2012.