Parliament wants Ksh14B Galana Kulalu Agricultural Scheme suspended

Parliament wants Ksh14B Galana Kulalu Agricultural Scheme suspended

National Assembly’s Agriculture Committee now wants the Sh14 billion Galana Kulalu Irrigation Scheme in Tana River be suspended.

The Members of Parliament said officials that were concerned with procuring viability studies of the project should be investigated on what led to the commissioning of the project.

The committee said the project has been a waste of taxpayers’ funds and it should be suspended and the officials investigated for the loss of public funds.

The ministry officials said the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) should scrutinise the thrashing of over Ksh100 million, after the cost of a feasibility study awarded to an Israeli firm was alleged to have risen from Sh793 million to Sh923 million.

The initiative to introduce the project meant to improve food production by switching from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation. The government was set to irrigate one million acres of arid land for a productive farming.

The committee’s chairman, Mr Mohammed Nooru said Galana Kulalu project was supposed to help the country take care of the shrinking agricultural land along with rising demand for food due to the growing Kenya’s population.

Nooru, who is also the Mandera East MP, criticised the government for proceeding with the project against the committee’s advice.

“The government sourced a single company to put in place a demonstration farm on 10,000 acres out of the 800,000 acres under the scheme,” Nooru said

He further added that the team had recommended that the project be put on hold since it had been poorly executed.

The agricultural research institute, after a feasibility study, had declared the 800,000 acres in the area possible for farming.

Committee Vice-Chairman Kareke Mbiuki said the contract for the model farm was awarded in a record one week without proper scrutiny on reasons as to why it was awarded.

He said the rush was due to an agreement between the Kenyan and Israeli governments.

The lawmakers said despite the National Treasury having so far pumped Sh7 billion, half of the entire budget, into the project, only 20 per cent of the projected results had been realised, three months before the deadline for the completion of the work.

Mbiuki said the whole project has been messed up and needs to be suspended.

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galana kulalu kenya agricultural reseach institute Members of the National Assembly

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