Help starving Kenyans, President Uhuru Kenyatta tells governors

President Uhuru Kenyatta has urged county governments to help starving Kenyans in their regions.

He said the national government will realign its budget to address hunger and urged the county governments to also come up with measures aimed at helping the affected.

“County governments will also be required to realign their budgets. We need to know how many people each county government is feeding,” said the President.

He said all government agencies, including the National Youth Service and other security agencies, need to be involved in food and water distribution.

President Kenyatta was speaking after being briefed by various ministries on the drought in the country and measures taken by the national government and other stakeholders to address it.

SERIOUS DROUGHT

The team, consisting of Cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries of the Devolution, Treasury, Agriculture, Labour and East African Affairs ministries, told the President that 23 arid and semi-arid counties are facing serious drought crises.

But they informed the President that concrete measures had been taken to ensure no Kenyan dies of hunger.

The President was given a preliminary report on the situation and agreed to meet the team on January 27 to get an update of the situation.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich and his Devolution counterpart Mwangi Kiunjuri said they have involved other stakeholders to provide necessary support.

Mr Rotich said the government will collaborate with international partners to contain the situation.

RELIEF DISTRIBUTED

The team, which also included Cabinet secretaries Willy Bett (Agriculture) and Phyllis Kandie (Labour) said the government was distributing food relief to 1.5 million Kenyans, a majority of whom are in the arid and semi-arid regions.

Other measures undertaken by the government include providing supplements and vaccines for livestock, enhancing school feeding programmes and scaling up other relief transfers.

The team said they will continue assessing the situation and increase interventions where the need arises.

Also present at the meeting were principal secretaries Richard Lesiyampe (Agriculture), Susan Mochache (Social Security and Services) and Josepheta Mukobe (Special Programmes) and James Oduor, the chief executive of the National Drought Management Authority.