Kitui Governor Julius Malombe has embarked on an ambitious Sh2.4 billion sand-dams masterplan to end perennial hunger and famine.
Malombe said his administration would construct 2,400 sand-dams across the county, each at Sh0.9 million to Sh1 million to shift from increasingly unreliable rain-fed agriculture to dependable irrigation.
He said the sand-dams would be a panacea to the cyclical food shortage and hunger in Kitui.
The governor said residents will grow enough food to feed themselves.
Malombe asked President William Ruto to give a hand.
He made the appeal when he hosted Ruto at Kitui Central Primary School on Sunday during a thanksgiving service by the AIC fraternity.
He said the initiative would be a sustainable medium- and long-term plan to address perennial famine.
The governor said his plan was to build sand-dams in each of the 40 wards, getting 60 dams and hunger once and for all.
He said experts from Southeastern Kenya University had mapped the areas ideal for building the dams.
Malombe told Ruto, who was joined by his deputy Rigathi Gachagua that since constructing a single dam would require nearly a million shillings, support from his government would be most welcome.
“I request you to help in financing the dams. One costs roughly Sh900,000 to Sh1 million. Please, I hope you will to assist me in constructing 1,000 dams,” Malombe implored Ruto.
“In our supplementary budget we are doing 100 dams because they are quite expensive and we have huge pending bills to contend with,” he said.
He said at every point where the sand-dams would be located, residents would be able to grow enough food to feed themselves.
The governor said his plan fits with Ruto’s announcement during last week’s Mashujaa Day celebrations that Kenyans need to stop relying-on rain-fed agriculture but instead turn to irrigation.
Malombe said Kitui has been hit hard by the drought and hoped Ruto and his administration would expedite relief food distribution to vulnerable families to save them from starvation.
During a Mashujaa Day celebration at Kitui Stadium last week, county commissioner Erastus Mbui said 341,000 people in Kitui were in dire need of humanitarian aid.
Kitui has been categorised among the counties in the drought alarm state.
(Edited by V. Graham)
