County boss assures residents of assistance as drought worsens

The Marsabit County government is mobilizing resources to combat looming famine, Governor Ukur Yattani has announced.

Speaking during Mashujaa Day celebrations on Thursday, Mr Yattani assured residents afflicted by famine due to prolonged drought that they will be helped to get food and water.

“Following the worrying weather conditions where we are faced with high probability of rainfall failure and subsequent drought, my government will mobilize adequate resources in the next few weeks both within and outside to deal with imminent drought,’’ said the governor in a speech.

The county chief said his administration will intensify water trucking, boreholes repair, provision of fuel and food relief to the affected areas.

Local leaders have called for urgent measures to mitigate ravaging drought to avert both life and property loss.

They complained that residents were experiencing difficulties accessing water as the commodity was getting scarce as the drought situation worsened.

MCAs who spoke during the celebrations at Marsabit stadium faulted the county government for what they termed as failure to institute measures to cushion families against famine.

Nominated MCA Sadia Araru said the dry spell had left thousands of local pastoralists without food and water.

She appealed to the national government to scale up supply of relief food to those affected.

Her counterpart Halakhe Diida demanded the county government to explain how it has spent Sh440 million allocated to the emergency relief fund in the last three years.

“We allocate Sh50 million every year for the fund yet we have never seen how the money was spent. The county government should give us answers. With the current drought being experienced in the county, this is the right time to use the money,’’ Mr Diida said.

Upper Eastern Kenya Red Cross Society coordinator Talaso Chucha asked the county government to provide the funds.

She said water pans and boreholes have dried up, lactating mothers lack milk to breastfeed their children, while livestock are emaciated following the drought.

She said her organization has done mass screening of children under five years in collaboration with Ministry of Health in Loiyangalani, Marsabit Central and North Horr sub-counties which revealed they were acutely malnourished.

“We have held talks with the county assembly to urgently try to push the county government to release disaster relief for emergency funds because they are custodian of the budget,” she said.

Out of 1,470 children we screened, she added, 1,000 were ‘acutely malnourished.’

In the current financial year 2016/2017 Sh5.9 billion budget, the assembly did not factor emergency relief fund in what the Finance Budget and Appropriation committee said was lack of accountability of the monies by county treasury.