Former military officers sue Kenya Defence Forces

By John Muthoni

Kenya: Two senior officers in the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) who were allegedly forced to resign over a military equipment procurement in 2010 have moved to court seeking compensation for what they say was wrongful dismissal.

The retired officers want the court to declare their termination illegal and unlawful and compel KDF to pay them more than Sh6 million. They also want to be paid damages.

Before Industrial Court Judge D K Marete, the two officers, under a certificate of urgency, said they had lodged similar and justifiable claims against the Chief of General Staff,  General Julius Karangi, and the Defence Council.

In the case, Retired Major General Enuch Sasia and Colonel Barnabas Rono told the court they were forced to resign to cloud and obfuscate the then ongoing investigations by the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations and Defence that was chaired by Adan Keynan on procurement of light armoured military vehicles from South Africa, warships from Italy and F5 military aircraft from Jordan.

The former officers, in a case where the Attorney General is the third respondent, told the court that various charges were preferred against them in a court martial that was chaired by the then Vice Chief of General staff, who is now the Chief of General Staff, and were compelled to resign without being given a fair chance of giving their side of the story, citing that their matter was different from what was being investigated.

Enuch was charged with two counts of conduct prejudicial to good order and service discipline contrary to section 68 of Armed Forces Act. He was also charged with neglecting to perform duty contrary to section 19 and two counts of disobedience to standing orders contrary to section 30 of the Armed Forces Act.

“The resignation by the claimant was ‘do-it-yourself dismissal’,” the claimant’s counsel Isaac Owuor said.

Enuch told the court there existed a contract between the government and Union Logistics Limited in 2008 for the provision of packaging and international freight forwarding services to Kenya Armed Forces in which they were to provide transport services of F5 spare parts from Jordan and USA in which the freight company over billed the payment by Sh32 million.

He said  this was detected by his deputy and the exaggerated figures taken back to the company for correction.  “The issue of overpayment was purely a dispute between the government and the freight company. It contains arbitration clause which the government or KDF never utilised despite the audit recommendation that the money be recovered,” said the claimant.

He accuses Kianga of merging the issue with the jet saga in which he said there were claims that the fighter jet could not take off.