AFRICOM is run with a huge budget which far exceeds most of what African countries have in their annual fiscal plans. On the overall, the United States Department of Defence runs with a budget that is equal to 3.4 % of the entire country’s annual spending. That amounts to US$ 780 billion and a significant portion of that goes to AFRICOM. The specific amount that is given to this command to run is $36 billion per annum. That is a whopping 5% of the total budget for the US military.
The US Department of Defence usually spends it budget in Africa through their embassies with the direct assistance by the Office of Security Cooperation. The United States has an embassy literally in every African country. In certain instances they would even have one or more consul offices like it is the case in South Africa and Nigeria.
When AFRICOM was formed in 2006, the US government had desired to place the command on the African soil. From what came through the media, Senegal and Botswana were some of the countries under consideration for hosting the AFRICOM headquarters. And all hell broke loose as the continent raised voices of decent against this idea and even Liberia which had publicly declared their interest sort of withdrew the offer silently.
Lieutenant General (Ret) Mompati Merafhe who was Botswana’s Minister of Foreign affairs and International Cooperation sounded very optimistic regarding giving AFROCOM a permanent home in this country. Had this happened, the current staff of the command numbering 1 500 would be living in this country.
Currently AFRICOM remains as the only command that is administered from the jurisdiction of another as it is housed in Stuttgart on German soil under EUCOM. This is where the command is spending its money. The location of the AFRICOM headquarters remains there as a legacy of bigotry by African leaders of the time.
However, Ethiopia seemed to have been in a posture and a disposition more inclined to hosting the command. Even the Americans seemed more inclined to making Addis Ababa the home of AFRICOM as inferred by a high ranking US Air Force general.
The growth of AFRICOM has been stunted by the fact that they have not found their final home. It is obvious that an African command cannot be run from European soil perpetually, it will finally have to come to motherland Africa. The level of outsourcing by this command also is another indicator that the command has not yet come to settle. The command still largely relies on the Department of Defence for resources in order to fulfil their mission.
EUCOM still struggles to breath as AFRICOM steals their oxygen. The Seventeenth Air Force was formed as an air support element to AFRICOM and what is interesting is that it is stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. Currently they are have been heavily involved in airlifting thousands of Afghans fleeing from the Taliban rule.
This location is the most critical logistical hub for EUCOM. There are daily flight between the US and this air base bringing in critical supplies of all sorts. Further to that, the VIP fleet is stationed at this air base and by 1992 when I was given an opportunity to tour the base, the place was already chocking under enormous air traffic.
The command has not yet reached its full potential after being in existence for fifteen years. The reason for these insufficiencies lies on the fact of their accommodation. AFRICOM has its offices scattered all over. They have offices in Germany, Florida, Italy and the United Kingdom. In the military, they talk of unity of force and this can never be achieved until the command finds itself a permanent home.
While other commands have been assigned support elements, AFRICOM has only been allocated a single brigade from the US Army and a bulk of these troops still remain on US soil because of lack of appropriate accommodation for their command. This has caused the command to fail to implements its projects and spend it total budget.
It remains to be logistically expensive for FRICOM to conduct military exercises with African forces on the continent because of the existing logistical challenges. It is also very expensive to fly the brigade from Italy at every event of military exercise in Africa.
By the way, Botswana has benefitted in doing military exercises with the US military. One of the most memorable military training courses has been ACOTA, xxxxx. Shoshong Combined Arms Training Area (SCATA) has seen countless American boots.
When the idea of setting up this command in Africa came, Botswana’s president was Festus Mogae. And we all know that Mogae was an economist who concentrated his leadership efforts in what he knew best, economics. He was keeping his eyes on the ball. Mogae was a mean spender in military hardware.
Ian Khama was Mogae’s VP. As a retired general from Botswana’s military, Khama was almost given a blank cheque on issues and decisions affecting the military. Khama was clearly not interested in the hosting of the AFRICOM even though his former boss, Lt Gen (Ret) Mompati Merafhe urged him on to take this opportunity.
Mogae was ultimately convinced to host the command by what can be termed as economic benefits of the decision. However, the country’s leadership finally dropped the idea of hosting AFRICOM because they feared political isolation by the rest of the continent. The backlash looked real.
Had Botswana taken a bold move to host AFRICOM, this country would have rewritten its story of success in style. It is timidity that has come to cost us a fortune. Follow through my argument in the next episode of a three part instalment on the Africa Command of the US.
