Written By Vanessa Kariuki ||
Defense CS Aden Duale has stated that the national government will redistribute a portion of development funding to lessen the consequences of the current drought.
Duale remarked that the nation was suffering from one of the worst droughts in decades and that the government was stepping up efforts to ensure that no Kenyan perished from hunger on Saturday when he inaugurated relief food distribution for Garissa County.
According to Duale, funding for development would be drastically reduced to pay for relief emergency programs as the government now places a higher priority on drought mitigating measures.
“The current droughty calls for emergency intervention programmes and that is why we shall be re-allocating part of the development budget towards saving lives and animals for our people,” Duale said.
“As a country, we are experiencing one of the worst droughts in decades after rains failed in the last three successive years. Our people are starving at starvation. Our livestock farmers have their animals in thousands. This call for extraordinary measures from the government,” he added.
4.3 million Kenyans, according to the government, are in urgent need of food aid. Among them, 1.2 million are in an emergency situation, while 3.1 million are in a crisis situation.
From 24 to 29 counties are currently impacted by the devastating drought, in the meantime.
The recently retired Garissa Township MP added that the government would improve the animal off-take program through the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) to prevent livestock owners from further losing their animals.
The government will purchase approximately 7 million animals as part of the scheme, which would then be slaughtered, packaged, and given to households suffering from starvation, boarding schools, and lactating mothers.
Duale urged ASAL counties to step up their efforts by allocating more resources to helping drought victims. He also thanked the donor community for their support.
One of the hardest stricken counties, Marsabit, has put its growth plans on hold in order to concentrate its resources on helping individuals who are in desperate need of food aid.
Duale petitioned the local County Commissioner, who also serves as the head of the County Steering group, to give the Lagdera sub-county access to extra water trucks.
Despite the fact that Ijara, Fafi, and Balambala sub-counties were facing drought in some areas, according to Duale, these areas bordered the Tana River and might not be in such dire need of water.
“I want to appeal to the Country Steering Group that when they are distributing water to drought victims, they should allocate more trucks to Lagdera because it has no source of water and it does not border the river Tana,” Duale said.
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