Devolution cabinet secretary Eugene Wamalwa is calling upon all county leaders in all drought-stricken counties to cooperate in coming up with measures to mitigate hunger situation.
Speaking during his Tana River visit, Wamalwa stressed to members of the county assembly to cooperate with their governors in the thirteen counties affected by drought by making adjustments in their supplementary budget to curb the situation.
In the adjustments, the counties would be able to set aside more funds to cripple drought associated threats in the said counties. Wamalwa had visited the county to launch relief food distribution, presiding world water day held at Hola stadium where he also commissioned Kelokelo water project in Ndura location.
He said that county governments should be the first defending tool during disasters before national government intervenes in curbing the situation.
The CS was accompanied by his ministry chief administrative secretary and former Tana River governor Hussein Tuneya Dado.
The devolution head directed his CAS together with the county team to start engaging in relief food distribution in the county starting from Saturday this weekend.
“I want to tell our deputy speaker our MCAs in the Tana River county assembly with other assemblies in the affected twelve counties in the country to cooperate with their governors in their supplementary budget to make adjustments so that to set aside more funds to curb the drought situation. During a drought like this one, our first line of defense are our county governments, counties have the mandate to help our citizens to make sure there are water and food and the national government will only intervene when the situation is beyond the counties’ capability so that we give them support. Tomorrow him (Hussein Dado) with county team NDMA, county commissioner, our chiefs will start distributing relief food in every area affected by hunger because already relief food is ready ” said the CS.
Tana River is among three coastal counties affected by drought together with Kilifi and Kwale.
Approximately 50,000 people in the county have been affected which is slightly lower than Kilifi which has and about 63,000 people and slightly higher than Kwale where 45,000 people have been affected.
