Fully engage experts in cattle vaccination plan
What you need to know:
- The apparent politicisation of the campaign is also likely to undermine the crucial goal of controlling animal diseases. KVA is, therefore, appealing for the campaign to be postponed to enable experts to lead it and explain to the people what is at stake so that they can understand the benefits.
The government’s increasing propensity for hasty decisions on matters of national importance is becoming its major undoing. It is important that the people are fully engaged in making decisions on issues affecting them.
This is why public participation is a cardinal constitutional requirement.
Just after the climb-down on the shady deals by Indian conglomerate Adani Group to run the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for 30 years and build power lines, President William Ruto is again at the centre of another potentially divisive initiative. He wants 21 million cattle and 50 million smaller livestock, including sheep and goats, vaccinated in a major campaign that is apparently being externally driven.
This is a massive initiative, but the public mood is generally against it. The President has dismissed those opposed to the campaign as “simply misguided, unreasonable and possibly stupid”. This sets the stage for yet another showdown.
Now, a group of professionals, whose views cannot be ignored, has entered the fray, calling on the government to go slow on this vaccination plan. The Kenya Veterinary Association (KVA) wants the government to stop the campaign until all the stakeholders, including veterinary professionals and farmers, are involved in planning and executing it.
KVA says that while it fully supports efforts to control livestock diseases, there are issues that can seriously undermine the campaign’s success. The veterinarians feel the government has failed to conduct a public sensitisation campaign and instead opted to force this down the throats of Kenyans. What is not clear, for example, is why the urgency.
The President says it is about fighting diseases and gaining international markets, but the people have just learnt about it. This explains the widespread opposition seeing it as a suspect scheme.
The apparent politicisation of the campaign is also likely to undermine the crucial goal of controlling animal diseases.
KVA is, therefore, appealing for the campaign to be postponed to enable experts to lead it and explain to the people what is at stake so that they can understand the benefits.
