President William Ruto Rigathi Gachagua and other officials will tour 12 counties to distribute relief supplies amid the ongoing drought crisis that has deprived many households of their livelihood.
Dr Ruto is expected tomorrow to tour Nakaale in Turkana County tomorrow and Baragoi in Samburu where he will be meeting residents affected by the ongoing drought in the country. Deputy President Gachagua will be touring Sajiloni in Kajiado and Amboseli.
Dr Ruto’s call to action comes amid a drought crisis that has affected different parts of the country leading to a shortage of food. In regions such as Turkana, over 500, 000 people are affected and facing food insecurity.
Other leaders who will also be touring the country include Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who will be in Mwala, Machakos, and First Lady Rachel Ruto in Kasarani.
This comes days after the President was crowned as the Kenya Red Cross Society patron at State House. He has termed the ongoing drought crisis to be the worst in four decades.
During the event, Dr Ruto said the government had allocated Sh2 billion to aid in drought mitigation. It brings the total sum allocated by the government to fight drought to Sh5.2 billion.
Mr Gachagua has also been leading the drought response team by working with donors and private entities that contribute towards the initiative.
A total of 4.2 million people from 24 per cent of the arid and semi-arid lands are facing hunger. And in the remote village of Kaakalel in Loima, Turkana County, 10-year-old Apos Matet might have a story to tell at the end of the crisis. We visited the village last weekend.
A bumpy ride on the long road that branches off from the Lodwar-Lokichar highway led us to Matet’s home.
We found Apos lying in the shade of his family manyatta at 4pm. It was a sweltering afternoon. He could neither utter a word nor stand on his own, thanks to hunger. His biggest daily task now is moving with the shade in order not to be dehydrated further, before his mother, Ms Naokot Matet, returns with contaminated water and wild fruits.
He sees visitors and wants to say something but can’t, and only manages to raise a hand and point with a slight jovial smile. Neighbours say he can’t stand on his own because he hasn’t eaten for days and his mother had gone to look for food (wild fruits) and would be back late in the evening.
The chatting outside the manyatta awakens Apua Matet, who crawls out to find out what was going on. Thirty minutes later, Ms Matet emerges, from one of the gullies that delimits her homestead from neighbours’, with a bucket of dry doum palm fruits on the head and a bottle of brownish water for drinking, her eyes expressing her dissatisfaction with what she is carrying after bumping into visitors.
The sight of a vehicle with relief food from Lodwar-based Ekeyekon Radio owner Michael Hallonda that was parked a few metres away, brought smiles and hope to an entire village of more than 300 families. Everyone, including children, received a bag containing cooking oil, beans, salt and maize flour. Large families got more.
“I don’t recall the last time I lit a fire and cooked on the three stones outside my manyatta. The state of my children is a living testimony. Showering or going to school are things we can’t think of at the moment,” Ms Matet told Saturday Nation .
She says the children are weak and there is nothing she can do to help as all their livestock that could produce milk, blood and meat have been wiped out by drought. “I am grateful for the food that we have received. The wild fruits we primarily depend on require one to drink a lot of water that is not available. If we don’t receive the food occasionally, I will be weak too and no one in the village will take care of the three of us,” she said.
Mr Hollanda said children in the village are affected by acute malnutrition, and kwashiorkor and are severely dehydrated as the water available is contaminated.
“It is sad to see that children can barely move and all they do is crawl and sleep to wait for what their parents will bring.”
He challenged elected politicians and those being vetted to occupy Executive positions to prioritise helping starving Kenyans.
Further, he said it is high time authorities walked the talk and invested in mega dams to store water from seasonal rivers.
Turkana Governor Jeremiah Lomorukai said that following the prediction by the Meteorological Department that the October–December rainfall will be below average, 98 per cent of residents will be affected by drought.
“At the moment, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in the county stands at 34.8 per cent due to the worsening drought. This is above the 15 per cent emergency threshold by World Health Organisation,” he said.
Traders in major towns in the county said they are currently affected by the drought because their customers are losing livestock and that diminishes their purchasing power.
Mr Abdul Wamala of Kakumatt Supermarket said many parents are now considering some items a luxury, forcing shop owners to repackage basic food commodities like sugar and flour into affordable quantities. He said that before he gets to work, mothers from Kawalase village wait at his gate to seek assistance from as early as 6 am, a situation he hadn’t experienced before.
“We are in a situation where we now don’t depend on profits from our businesses. At my home, besides giving out food, I have to truck water as the situation is unbearable for many,” he said.
Governor Lomorukai appealed to the national government to declare the ongoing drought a national emergency, arguing that doing so would lead to better plans for tackling the effects of the drought, with his administration seeking to spend Sh300 million to procure relief food for thousands of starving residents.
He directed county officials to reorganise the budget to ensure the emergency fund is available to procure food and animal feed and appealed to development partners to step up drought emergency response efforts, noting that the situation is far worse than official reports indicate.
In Laisamis, Marsabit County, the halting of the school feeding programme for three consecutive terms has seen at least 34 per cent (6,018) of learners drop out of school, according to Deputy County Commissioner Langat Bitok. He appealed to parents and other stakeholders to work with the local administration to help the learners return to class.
“It is estimated that at least 34 per cent of the students in Laisamis Constituency have dropped out of school due to drought and famine and we appeal to all parents and partners to help them return to school,” Mr Bitok said.
Speaking during a relief food flag-off ceremony by Lake Turkana Wind Power Company at Laisamis Primary School, he urged parents who withdrew their children from school to return them.
Subc-county TSC director Cecilia Wangeci said teachers are grappling with handling hungry learners who are unable to concentrate in class.
Local politicians present, among them Korr MCA Daudi Tomaso, demanded to know how the national government spent Sh1.2 billion set aside for the feeding programme during the last fiscal year, saying its impact was never felt in Marsabit.
Sub-county education director Alio Kerrow attributed the rising number of school dropouts to the lack of feeding programmes usually undertaken by the national government. He said over 1,000 learners returned to school early this year when Lake Turkana Wind Power company rolled out a two-month feeding programme across the sub-county.
Lake Turkana Wind Power Company site manager Felix Rotteman assured residents that the firm will support the school feeding programme for two terms and beyond if possible.
Marsabit county commissioner Paul Rotich appealed to all learners who were out of school to resume classes, adding that enough food has been supplied to schools to sustain them.
