County plans to divert money for projects to address drought

The Marsabit County government is planning to suspend pending projects and divert funds to drought mitigation.

If approved, the county will spend half of its current expenditure to minimise the effects of the dry spell.

Governor Ukur Yatani on Thursday described the drought as the worst to strike the region in a decade.

He added that he will hold a meeting on Friday with ward representatives to urge them to approve the use of the supplementary budget in saving more than 150,000 affected households.

"We had a cabinet meeting today and we resolved to suspend some projects and also cut by half the recurrent expenditure until [the] next financial year.... to see how we can help our people out of hunger.

"I appeal to the MCAs to work with us so that we suspend some projects to pool resources to buy food and water to help the affected families," the governor said.

The projects to be pushed forward include construction of roads, hospitals and classrooms.

Mr Yatani said the Sh50 million allocated to the emergency relief fund is not enough to alleviate the situation.

He spoke in Marsabit town after flagging off trucks ferrying 20,000 tonnes of food aid worth Sh100 million to various destinations.

FOOD DISTRIBUTION

The governor said the most affected are breastfeeding mothers, the elderly and children.

The administration has over the past four months been hiring water tankers to supply residents with water.

The prolonged dry spell, the governor noted, had overstretched available financial resources making it hard to sustain the programme.

Nevertheless, the county chief said his administration will intensify efforts in supplying water with trucks, repairing boreholes, providing fuel and food relief to those in need.

Last month, 124,681 residents in the county's four constituencies (Saku, North Horr, Laisamis and Moyale) received food aid.

The dry spell that has lasted more than five months has depleted pasture and water, with reports indicating that some livestock have started dying, particularly in North Horr Dukana wards.

The rations being given out include 10,031 bags of maize, 5,057 bags of beans and 1,805 cartons of cooking oil.

National Drought Management Authority's Upper Eastern Red Cross coordinator Talaso Chucha said they will give each household Sh3,000 as a drought response measure.

North Horr, Ileret, Loiyangalani and Korr wards, which she described as malnutrition hotspots, will be the mains beneficiaries.