Isiolo County Commissioner Geoffrey Omoding has called on Non- governmental organisations operating in the County to chip in to save lives of starving people following prolonged drought.
Addressing the County Steering Group, Mr Omoding said that the local community has lost over 50 percent of livestock and wananchi are now forced to rely on relief food supplies for the coming months when a short rainy season is expected according to the meteorological department’s prediction.
He said that 11,560 families are on social protection which constitutes 20 percent of the population relying on each other for survival during drought period while 17,240 approved by the technical working group are on the waiting list.
The County Commissioner said the County received a total of 11,540 high impact nutrition livestock feeds from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) National Drought Management Authority and Non-governmental organisation ACF.
Omoding asked the development actors from the area to withhold their priority development projects and instead focus on drought intervention in order to save lives, saying drought has claimed half of the livestock in the area.
The administrator said the major problem facing Wananchi is the long distance to the water points which has increased from 3.7 km to 17.4 km owing to drought.
The CC added that Modogashe trading centre is hardly hit by drought in the last 15 months where water trucking is done from Habaswen in Wajir County, 60 km away.
Omoding said that NGOs that can provide relief food and animal feeds should be made members of County relief committee so as to guarantee transparency.
The CC directed Deputy County Commissioners to give priority to day secondary schools saying the move would bring students back to school hence improved enrolment.
He directed the Deputy County Commissioners to form special CSGs in their areas of jurisdiction and include NGOs so as to participate in the distribution of 1080 bags of beans, 600 bags of 50 kg rice and 300 cartons of corned beef which the government released to all the 23 drought hit counties in the country.
