Relief food on sale in Samburu as many starve

A group of morans fetch water for their starving livestock and for domestic use on October 16, 2016. Samburu County is experiencing severe drought. PHOTO | GODFREY OUNDOH | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The deal, which is done in secret, involves National Cereals and Produce Board personnel at the stores in the town.

Food meant for starving people in Samburu County is being sold in shops even as famine persists in the semi-arid region.

A Nation team had no problem buying a bag of beans from a shop in Maralal Town.

The 50kg bag of beans was selling at Sh2,700, while a 50kg bag of rice went for Sh3,000 even with a label that reads “Not For Sale or Exchange”.

When approached, the unsuspecting shop owner volunteered to go and fetch another bag of beans since the one he had in the shop had been opened and beans sold in small portions.

The deal, which is done in secret, involves National Cereals and Produce Board personnel at the stores in the town.

Buyers of maize and rice are asked to deposit money in the NCPB’s KCB bank account and present the deposit slip to the store before collecting the foodstuffs, but for fertiliser and beans they pay in cash.

Samburu Governor Moses Lenolkulal said the selling of relief food was a big issue in the county and his government was working hard to streamline the distribution of supplies.

SHAMEFUL ACT
“I know that some politicians in the county are part of this shameful act. But the office of the county commissioner is currently streamlining it. Anyone found selling relief food will be arrested and charged,” he said.

At Kisima and Suguta Marmar trading centres, shop owners confessed that the relief food has been on sale since last year .The food crisis has taken a heavy toll on a majority of the people living in remote areas of the county. Without their livestock, the communities here entirely depend on relief food supplied by the national government and the World Food Programme.

“I can sleep without a blanket. I can bear the cold weather at night and hot sun during the day, but my family and I cannot live without food,” says Ms Joyce Leitore, a resident of Ledero Village.

People, who were displaced by tribal clashes in Laikipia in 2009, are also in dire need of food, which a few aid organisations are struggling to provide.

According to the Kenya Red Cross Society, the pastoralists in Samburu don’t get enough relief food.

“The World Food Programme through the national government is trying to feed hungry families but the truth is that the food is not enough,” says Samburu Red Cross Branch manager Reuben Lesangurukuri.

The irony, however, is that the relief food from the NCPB store is being sold in shops. Mr Boniface Mburu, the WFP store manager at Maralal NCPB , said that the board through the WFP recently received a total of 19,296bags of sorghum.

“We have not received any maize or beans since last April,” he said while denying that WFP relief food was being sold in the shops.