As the drought continues to bite and wreak havoc in Kajiado County, 20,000 families within the county can now breathe a sigh of relief at least for a few days thanks to the Kajiado County government.
Speaking in his office during the flagging off, Governor Lenku said that the county government is leading from the front in tackling the drought even as it appeals to the national government and all well-wishers to come in and help them in whatever way they could.
Ole Lenku revealed that there are 110,000 vulnerable families and 350,000 livestock representing 50 per cent of all the livestock affected by drought in the county.
“At least 20,000 families drawn from the five Kajiado sub counties will benefit from the relief food worth Sh75 million from the emergency kitty in a bid to cushion them against the biting drought,” said Ole Lenku.
The governor noted that to ensure only the vulnerable families benefitted, the county conducted a two weeks training for the teams that would be distributing the relief food starting from the village level so as to enable them to correctly identify vulnerable families.
He added that to ensure equity, fairness and zero pilferage, the county has a computerized control room which would monitor the entire process.
The governor revealed that the important component of water tracking was yet to begin and the fuel subsidy by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) was forthcoming.
“I want to appeal to all our political leaders regardless of their political affiliations to go out of their way and seek support for the community as it is the lives of our people at stake,” said Lenku.
The relief food package includes 6kg rice, 4kg maize flour, 4 kg beans, and 2 litres of cooking oil.
On Wednesday, the county government will release 6,000 bags of livestock pellets donated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
By Diana Meneto
