The Garissa county government has embarked on an exercise to assess the current drought with the aim of scaling up mitigation measures following failed long rains, area governor, Ali Korane has said.
Speaking to the press at his residence on Wednesday, Korane said few parts of the county received rains but were not enough, noting that between now and October the drought situation could get worse.
The governor said his administration had initially thought of re-allocating funds from different departments to the emergency kitty when the meteorological department said the long rains were to fail.
“We had started this process of re-allocating the funds but when it started raining we thought that the drought problem was over only for the rains again to fail midway,” Korane said.
“The reports we are receiving from the 6 sub-counties paint a bleak picture. The rains never made any impact and most of the water sources were never filled up and have started drying up. The pasture is depleting fast and soon we will be back to the drawing board,” he added.
Korane said his administration has started the process of re-assessing the drought situation and urged the national government and other stakeholders to come on board .
The governor said the county wants to start addressing the problem early enough to avoid mobilising resources at the height of the drought as has been the case in the past.
The Garissa SUPKMEM Chairman, Abdullahi Salat on his part, urged for collective effort by all the relevant stakeholders in addressing the drought situation.
Salat said that as an organisation they have realised there is more rural urban migration which normally takes place in times of drought.
“There are all signs that things are not good and we managed to talk to some of those migrating and their main reason was depleted resources due to the drought,” Salat said.
Salat urged the county government to take the lead in mitigating the drought and asked the Muslim fraternity to continue assisting each other especially at this time of need as was the trend during the Ramadhan period.
“I want to appeal to my fellow Muslim that let us extend our support to the less fortunate by re-directing our assistance to those that have been affected by the drought,” he added.
According to latest report by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), the drought situation had slightly gone down but because of amount of rains received, the problem could start escalating as from next month.
By Jacob Songok
