At least 20 Kenyan police officers deployed in Haiti to combat gangs have submitted resignation letters from the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission.
According to a report by Reuters, the officers submitted their resignation letters over the past two months, citing delayed payments and poor working conditions.
However, despite submitting their resignation letters, the said officers have received no response and have remained to serve on the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission.
Further, a section of Kenyan police officers in Haiti lamented that their communication was being controlled to prevent any information about their suffering from leaking back to the country.
At least five senior officers, including a unit commander, who was the first to submit a letter in October, have submitted their resignation letters.
Kenyan Police in Haiti Resign
Three officers who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity also revealed that they were last paid in September.
This contradicts statements made by Inspector General (IG) of Police Douglas Kanja, who said that the Kenyan officers in Haiti had received their salaries up to the end of October.
“Our officers in Haiti have received their payment up to the end of October,” Kanja stated.
Also Read: Inside Ruto and U.S Haiti Military Agreement
This comes amid revelations that the Kenyan government has so far spent Ksh2.1 billion on the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti.
This was despite an earlier commitment that no taxpayer money would be used to fund the peace mission.
Treasury CS John Mbadi explained that the funds spent by Kenya would be reimbursed by the United Nations.
“This money we are spending on behalf of the UN, we are the ones making the payment, so the money comes from our exchequer because these are our officers,” he said.
“So, we pay, and they refund, but now we have to recognize the expenditure because it was not in the budget. The law says two months should not elapse, and when we do supplementary budgeting, we will reflect it as both income and expenditure.”
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Mission Difficulties
Since its launch, the mission has been facing financial challenges as several foreign nations are yet to honour their pledges.
The UN-backed mission receives funds voluntarily from donor countries through a trust fund.
However, failure by donor countries to fulfill their promises has led to logistical challenges for the Kenyan officers in the Caribbean nation.
Also Read: Russia Issues Statement on Kenyan Mission in Haiti After Rejecting US Proposal
Russia Calling for More Support
In November, Russia called for more support for the Kenyan police in Haiti, a day after rejecting a United States-led proposal to turn the Kenya-led police mission in Haiti into a UN peacekeeping operation.
Russia through its deputy permanent representative to the UN stated that the Haitian police and the Kenyan contingent in Port-au-Prince remain the only forces countering criminal gangs at present.
“The current tragic events in Haiti demonstrate that irrespective of our decision on the format of a future international presence in the country, Haitians do need urgent assistance, right now,” Russia said.
“We believe it is of paramount importance to provide the necessary logistical and financial assistance to them, otherwise there will be simply no one left to ‘host’ Haiti’s future peacekeepers.”
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