We are living in interesting times. The shilling is still north of Sh100 and only a collapse of global oil prices has spared us from an inflationary noose. The stock market has just about halted its free fall but is nowhere near where it was. The government has run out of cash and raided the local markets, the Treasury is spending like a drunken sailor on projects of questionable return and inflated kickbacks while the CID is having journalists’ collars felt.

Our children are being saddled with debts that their children will struggle to pay, devolution is an expensive mess, we are constructing herds of white elephants because we love pouring concrete and our education system is unravelling before our eyes.

Thank goodness through all these tribulations we still have KDF to believe in. Just look at all the hashtags launched whenever criticism is levelled at the beloved military forces.

There is a view that, although the government is slow and incompetent, the military is disciplined and relatively corruption-free.

Kenya has a professionally trained army that is the envy of the region, and the force is immunised from vice and stands above the murky swamp.

KDF, it was reported, conspire with Al Shabab to sell charcoal and aid in smuggling sugar.  The first report that KDF were running this racket was made in 2013 by the UN. In 2014, the Institute of Defence Analyses, a US government-funded organisation, pointed the accusing finger. In 2015, it is Journalists for Justice repeating the claim.

Each time the top brass has denied these claims. We can surmise that the United Nations, the US government and journalists are lying to us. KDF are paragons of virtue, whose ethics are Persil-white, who we should be begging to run our elections.

I believe the claims. It has been repeated several times that the top brass is filling its boots with the proceeds of criminal enterprise from the Somali adventure.

To the conquerors the spoils. Everywhere soldiers have gone around the globe in the past century of conflict, they have opened up a black market for goods. Peacekeeping is usually an avenue for profiteers, wars are open season for smugglers.

BOTTLED WATER

The American army, for example, stands accused of aiding heroin production in Afghanistan. Indeed, heroin production increased during the American occupation of that country.

The myth of a fundamentally incorruptible KDF has long been shattered.

The annual recruiting process degenerates into a farce involving bribery for enlistment.

Kenyan soldiers have been known to bribe to be included in peacekeeping missions, the parliamentary Hansard tells us.

Our military serves as an avenue for extorting the public pocket through hushed-up deals: we bought a fishing boat and christened it a frigate for the navy. We were told that goat herders routinely steal from the air force, and that we needed a quarter of a million worth of lights for the Laikipia Airbase.

We also saw KDF carrying paper bags from Westgate that we were reliably informed contained bottled water. When the owners of the shops returned, they found their safes had been pried open and valuables looted.

The most audacious attempts at robbing the public purse have been conceived under the security docket. No leader would dare significantly cut the military’s budgets lest he invoke the ire of soldiers.

The fact that KDF still has its reputation intact is more a feature of our forgetfulness and national genius at self-delusion and the scantiness of the information reaching us about their activities  in Somalia.

I prefer what Uday and Qusay Hussein did when they turned up at the Iraqi central bank with a lorry and demanded $1 billion loaded at the back just before the Americans struck. It is better to know when you are being robbed outright rather than through deals conceived in silence and in secrecy.

Already, we prioritise frontline soldiers and generals before frontline health services and general hospitals. We cut university education budgets and bolster security budgets. Our spending on the military is not based on an assessment of risk and is a detriment to the social programmes in the country.

KDF now stands accused of being in a symbiotic relationship with Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab serve as the bogeymen who ensure that money always flows KDF’s way; KDF, on its part, facilitates the selling of charcoal to the Middle East from Kismayu, ensuring Al Shabab makes enough to terrorise both Somalia and Kenya and ensure we increase the KDF budget.

DAMAGING CLAIMS

The JFJ report claimed that KDF made Sh1.3 billion a year allowing bags laden with charcoal and sugar to pass without asking questions. Mumias sugar loses billions selling sugar while KDF is said to make billions smuggling it.

The buck stops with the commander-in-chief. The President loves playing soldier so much that he sometimes (usually after bad press) becomes a generalissimo by donning all his five stars and walking around in a military costume (only when earned is it a uniform).

As commander- in-chief (he wears his uniform as though he would at a moment decide to lead the charge) he should speak and act very strongly on the claims laid at the foot of KDF.

The armed forces stand accused of subsidising the activities of an enemy that hurts us so intimately. This is an enemy that has in the past targeted our shopping centres, our children in university and our cities.

It is too damaging a claim to be repeated by internationally reputable bodies with no tangible action seen to be taken.

By WAGA ODONGO