President Uhuru Kenyatta Wednesday was briefed on the drought situation in the country and measures taken by the national government and other stakeholders to address the situation.
The team comprising Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of Devolution, Treasury, Agriculture, Labour and East African Affairs, told the President as of now 23 arid and semi-arid counties are facing serious drought crisis.
They however informed the President of concrete measures taken to ensure no Kenyan dies because of hunger.
The President was given a preliminary report of the situation and agreed to meet the team on 27th of this month to get detailed report on the situation.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich and his Devolution counterpart Mwangi Kiunjuri, informed the President of their decision to involve other stakeholders who are also on the ground providing necessary support.
CS Treasury said the government has come up with a good frame work to collaborate with other international partners to contain the situation.
The team which also included Cabinet Secretaries Willy Bett (Agriculture) and Phyllis Kandie (Labour & EAC affairs) said so far the government has been distributing food relief to 1.5 million Kenyans majority of whom are from the ASAL Counties.
The President said the national government will realign its budget to address the situation and urged the County governments to also come up with measures aimed at curtailing the situation.
“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.
The President pointed out that all government agencies including the National Youth Service and other security agencies need to be involved in food and water distribution.
Other measures undertaken by the government include livestock offtake, provision of supplements and vaccines for livestock’s, upscale of school feeding programmes and scaling up of other relief transfers.
The team said they will continue assessing the situation and scale interventions when and where need arises.
Also present were Principal Secretaries Richard Lesiyampe (Agriculture), Susan Mochache (Social Security and Services), Josepheta Mukobe (Special Programmes) and James Oduor Chief Executive of National Drought Management Authority.
-PSCU