Via Spokesperson GOK

The Government is concerned with the drought situation in the country.

As a response, emergency relief assistance is in place in affected areas across the country as a stop gap measure to ensure that people don’t get further affected by the drought.

This week emergency food distribution exercises have been done in Makueni and Kajiado, and today, Col. (Rtd) Cyrus Oguna is in Wajir for the same.

Accompanied by Wajir Deputy Governor Hashim Musa Yussuf and Deputy County Commissioner Wajir East Omar Beja, Col. (Rtd) Cyrus Oguna visited 3 locations out of the 10 locations in Wajir where the food distribution exercise was taking place.

So far the Government has released 11,000 bags of rice and 16,000 bags of beans to Wajir County.

In addition, the Government is implementing social support – Inua Jamii supplemented by the hunger safety net program ran by Red Cross to cushion those affected by drought.

The Government is also undertaking the school feeding program to ensure children are fed in schools so they don’t have to go out looking for food when they should be in class studying. Ksh. 30 million is currently allocated for ECD schools in Wajir by the county Government.

The off-take program currently being implemented by KDF is also a program meant to cushion pastoralists from heavy losses coming from the death of their pasture due to drought.

As of October 2021, 1.5 billion has been given to upscale this program to allow KDF buy livestock from the farmers. Col. (Rtd) Cyrus Oguna has urged citizens in pastoral communities to heed to the government warning of drought seasons saying, it would be wise to sell the livestock when they are in good condition so they can fetch great returns, as opposed to keeping them to a point that the livestock are actually dying leading to losses.

So far, the cash transfer program has not been actualised in October and November owing to the fact that appropriate infrastructure to send the cash to citizens in need is still being put in place. However, when the right infrastructure is in place, the program will take effect.

Currently, the County Government of Wajir is carrying out water tracking in 200 centers as a way of availing the water to families and their livestock.

To ensure the amount of people affected by drought across the country each year does not grow in number, the Government has put in place key long term measures to lessen the impact of drought.