Turkana Governor Jeremiah Lomorukai visited Loima Sub County where he supervised the ongoing emergency drought response by the County Government.
The Governor began his tour in Kakalel where he visited and provided support to the family recently featured in news reports indicating the severity of the drought and later led relief distribution to residents of Kakalel and Kang’alita in Lobei/Kotaruk Ward.
He announced that County emergency response was ongoing in different regions of the county and promised to visit areas worst affected to coordinate the efforts.
Lomorukai pronounced the drought situation as severe and appealed for support from the National Government, development partners, and other humanitarian organizations.
“We have brought a small consignment of food to support families that are most affected and we are planning for more support for affected communities across the county,” he said.
“The drought situation is at the alarm stage and has affected nearly 800,000 residents of Turkana with the Global Acute Malnutrition rate rising to 34.8 per cent. We need support from the National Government, partner organizations and other friends to support us,” he added.
The Governor told residents that he had made efforts to meet with partner organizations in Nairobi to mobilize for additional resources. The organizations include World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF, World Bank, Danish and American Embassies.
He announced that President William Ruto was set to visit Turkana County this weekend to coordinate national government relief efforts. He thanked the President for the national government’s support including 400 bags of relief food.
The county boss informed residents that the county had budgeted Sh300million for emergency relief support for this financial year and procurement of relief food had kicked off.
The emergency drought response included treatment and supply of nutritional supplements by the Department of Health and Sanitation.
Lomorukai instructed the Department of Health to monitor the families affected by the drought and provide treatment and support with nutritional supplements.
Commenting on the reported theft of relief food, the Governor announced that the cases had been reported to the police and all those implicated will be apprehended. This follows reports where beneficiaries of county relief food found water instead of cooking oil in containers and missing food in boxes distributed.
County Executive Committee Member for Public Service, Administration and Disaster Management Jeremiah Namuya urged county officials including village and ward administrators to be proactive in relaying information to the government for quick action.
Assistant County Commissioner Dominick Kinyanjui disclosed that relief food from the National Government was on the way and it would be distributed to affected residents before they exhausted the rations provided by the county government.
Lobei/Kotaruk Ward MCA Anarclet Lemuya commended the Governor for delivering the relief support with speed and promised to work with the Governor to deliver services to residents.
Other MCAs present were Lawrence Lopayo (Lokiriama/Lorengippi), Amojong Mark (Loima), Patrick Losuru (nominated) and Hellen Kaile (nominated).
Senior County officers present included Ag. Chief Officer for Public Service, Administration and Disaster Management Chris Locheria, Chief of Staff Peter Yoromoe, Sub County Administrator Rachel Aroo among others.
Also present were County Executive Committee nominees Peter Akono and David Erukudi.
By Peter Gitonga
