Govt to realign budget to address drought

President Uhuru Kenyatta says the national government will realign its budget to address the current drought situation, calling on county governments to also come up with measures aimed at addressing the situation.

The President was speaking on Wednesday, January 18 at State House, Nairobi after a briefing by a team of Cabinet Secretaries on the drought situation in the country and measures taken by the national government and other stakeholders to address the situation.

“County governments will also be required to realign their budgets. We need to know how many people each county government is feeding,” said the President.

The President pointed out that all government agencies including the National Youth Service (NYS) and other security agencies need to be involved in food and water distribution.

The team comprising Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of Devolution, Treasury, Agriculture, Labour and East African Affairs told the President as of now, 23 arid and semi-arid counties are facing serious drought crisis.

They, however, informed the President of concrete measures taken to ensure no Kenyan dies because of hunger.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich, and his Devolution counterpart, Mwangi Kiunjuri, informed the President that so far the government has distributed relief food to 1.5 million Kenyans majority of whom are from arid and semi-arid counties.