Govt asks private sector to help in addressing drought

Interior Cabinet Secretary, Major Gen. (Rtd.) Joseph Nkaissery, has called on the private sector to assist the government in its efforts to mitigate effects of the ongoing drought and handling man-made and natural disasters.

Speaking during government-private sector engagement on disaster risk management in Nairobi, Nkaissery said the Jubilee government has developed a policy on how the country can mitigate all disasters and with Cabinet having approved cabinet 21 billion shillings for disaster management last year.

Nkaissery further challenged governors to give more funds for drought mitigation, saying the Ksh 1 million each county has undertaken to give added to personal donations is insufficient to the lives of more than 1.3 million Kenyans facing drought.

This comes barely a fortnight after the Kenya Red Cross Society appealed to Kenyans to help it raise a billion shillings as part of its efforts to mitigate the ongoing drought.

While singling out Marsabit County as the worst hit, Red Cross Secretary General, Abbas Gullet, said that the funds would enable the society move aid to over 2 million affected Kenyans.

Gullet further indicated that campaign targets 340,000 families in 13 most affected counties among them Garissa, Isiolo, Mandera, Kilifi, Kwale, Tana River and Lamu with an aim of providing water, food, vouchers and cash.

The government has since undertaken mitigation measures among them; livestock off take programs, provision of supplements and vaccines for livestock, upscale of school feeding programmes and scaling up of other relief transfers.