Leaders from Kitui County are calling upon the national government to supply residents of the county with relief food and also introduce school feeding to counter the prevailing drought, which has placed many school going children at the verge of dropping out due to hunger.
Speaking in two separate occasions, Mwingi West MP Charles Nguna and his Mwingi North counterpart Eng. Paul Nzengu urged the national government through the Ministry of Devolution to come to the rescue of starving residents who have been hard hit by famine following two consecutive seasons of failed rains.
Nguna, while speaking at Nzawa Day Secondary School where he had gone to launch the construction of a laboratory funded by the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF), called for classification of the entire county as a hardship zone owing to frequent droughts.
He said national government employees working in the county go through untold miseries due to the harsh climatic conditions of the region.
Separately, Eng. Nzengu while addressing media in Mwingi town on the state of famine in the county, said that supplying schools with relief food would ensure that all learners turn up for studies because even if they lack food at their homes they would be guaranteed of a meal in school.
The two legislators moved to debunk the myth that Kitui County is food secure, maintaining that most residents of the county were still languishing in poverty.
By Denson Mututo and Charlotte Tinah
