{The monthly allowance for each Uganda People\u2019s Defense Force soldier serving in Somalia has been reduced from $1, 028 (Shs3, 378, 760 million) to $828 (Sh2, 721, 410).}<\/p>\n
The European Union, which through the African Union picks the tab, has not formally said why it reduced the allowance.<\/p>\n
When contacted Saturday through Sunday, Uganda\u2019s Defense ministry spokesperson Paddy Ankunda said was paying his last respects to Court Martial chairperson Major General Levi Karuhanga, 60, who died on Friday.<\/p>\n
Each Ugandan soldier in Somalia will however get only $628 (Shs2, 064, 070) because Uganda\u2019s defense ministry will, as it has been wont to, deduct $200 (Shs657, 346) from each soldier\u2019s allowance to recover \u201cpreparatory expenses\u201d \u2013 training et al.<\/p>\n
Some Ugandan figures though attribute it to the international community\u2019s \u201closs of interest\u201d in the Somali mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be that they are losing interest in Somalia because despite the resources and the time invested, al Shabaab [a terrorist group] is still present and is still causing chaos \u2013 even outside Somalia,\u201d Shadow Defense and Security minister Hassan Kaps Fungaroo said on Friday, April 22 during an interview with the Daily Monitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy else are the funders reducing the money at a critical time like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Uganda deployed troops in Somalia in 2007 to maintain peace. According to some accounts, Uganda between 2, 700 and 7, 000 soldiers in Somalia.<\/p>\n
Other countries with troops there are Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Kenya, which went to Somalia following al Shabaab incursions in northeastern Kenya.<\/p>\n
For its presence there, al Shabaab has carried out raids some in Kenya others on the Kenya Defense Force troops\u2019 bases in Somalia, killing many Kenyans.<\/p>\n
al Shabaab terror group wants the foreign troops propping up Somali\u2019s Transitional National Government to withdraw from Somali soil, which Kenya and Uganda have rejected since it could imply they have capitulated to terrorist group\u2019s threats.<\/p>\n
Mr Peter Okeyoh, a member of the House Committee on Defense and Internal Affairs, said the reduction of allowances could dampen the morale of the Uganda troops in Somalia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will affect the morale of the Ugandan soldiers,\u201d Mr Okeyoh said on Friday. \u201cOur troops have not been paid their allowances for several months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Okeyoh said the reduction of the allowances is the UN\u2019s way of saying Amison has failed to build the capacity of the Somali\u2019s to take full charge of their own security.<\/p>\n
Before each Uganda soldier selected to join Amison leaves Uganda, he or she has to open two accounts: a dollar account in which the allowances will be wired and a Shilling account where their salaries, paid by the government of Uganda will be deposited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The monthly allowance for each Uganda People\u2019s Defense Force soldier serving in Somalia has been reduced from $1, 028 (Shs3, 378, 760 million) to $828 (Sh2, 721, 410).} The European Union, which through the African Union picks the tab, has not formally said why it reduced the allowance. When contacted Saturday through Sunday, Uganda\u2019s Defense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2481],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-daily-monitor"],"bylines":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24868"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24868"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}