President William Ruto’s motive to deploy 1000 police officers to Haiti have been put in question by Former U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti .

Foote in an interview with CNN says that Kenya’s motivation to lead the security mission is largely spurred by financial incentives from the UN Security Council and not genuine peacekeeping efforts.

“I believe that this is more of a cash grab by President Ruto whose country will receive a lot of money for doing this,” he said.

He further revealed that the US government had initially pledged $100 million (Ksh.13 billion) to support the Kenyan-led multinational force to restore security to Haiti.

The former envoy added that the number of officers to be deployed fall short of the number required to aid in the liberation of the Caribbean country.

Foote further added that in the past more than 20,000 troops would be sent to try liberate the country with each mission deeming unsuccessful.

“A thousand isn’t going to cut it and while they have commitments for double or triple that, that’s still not going to cut it. Every time there has been a military intervention in Haiti in the past 20 years, it’s had a minimum of 20,000 troops or police going in there,” Foote said.

He said that he feared for the Kenyan troops to be deployed noting that the Haitian gangs who are well-armed would fiercely combat Kenyan troops especially if thing go as planned.

“The Haitians are well armed and if the international community imposes this Caricom government contract, they are going to fight the Kenyans to the death,” he said.

Foote further noted that Kenyan’s public reluctance to support the mission to Haiti worried him.

“You see the reticence on the part of the Kenyan public to send these guys and that makes me nervous,” he said.

Last week Kenya announced that the plan to send police to Haiti under a UN-backed multinational mission had been put on hold.

However President William Ruto remains adamant on the Kenyan government’s commitment to embark on the mission to Haiti.