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"id": 85999,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/85999/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mudavadi",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government",
"speaker": {
"id": 84,
"legal_name": "Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi",
"slug": "musalia-mudavadi"
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"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to make a Statement on the national preparedness for the looming La Nina Phenomena. The country has, in the recent past, experienced several crises including protracted droughts, floods and landslides. Of particular concern is the cyclic nature that the crisis has taken. As you may recall, the country experienced prolonged drought in 2009 as a result of four successive seasons of depressed rains. The last drought in particular hit pastoral communities hard. Many of the communities who lost their livestock in the last drought are yet to recover and are only just embarking on restocking. After the devastation caused by that drought, we received good amounts of rainfall leading to a bumper harvest in most parts of the country. The El Nino season that brought so much rain earlier this year in the country is giving way to La Nina, which ushers in a dry season. The Kenya Meteorological Department has alerted us that the occurrence of La Nina for the remainder of 2010 will present reduced rainfall and its maximum effects will be in the month of December, which will impact on about 5 million people. They are warning that the pattern building up is similar to what was witnessed in the country in 1973 with most parts of the country receiving below normal rainfall. We are being told that the short rains that are expected from the third week of this month will not be much and will be over by the third to fourth week of December. Further, whereas the food situation in the country has so far been good, this is steadily changing with the onset of La Nina . The situation is expected to deteriorate further if this phenomenon persists and affects the onset and distribution of 2011 long rains. Given our experience in the last drought, the Government is taking this alert from the Meteorological Department very seriously. We are determined to plan an aggressive adaptation and mitigation response to the La Nina phenomenon. I want to draw your attention to Government responses to the drought and El Nino crisis. His Excellency the President declared the 2009 drought a national disaster in August, 2009. Subsequently, the National Drought Response Steering Committee was established with a Crisis Response Center as its secretariat. The same center worked directly with affected districts to ensure timely coordination of multi-faceted comprehensive and rapid response to the crisis. The responses were provided by various sectors and they included the provision of food, vaccines, water, water tanks, livestock off-take, relief seed, drugs and food supplements among others. We may not have performed optimally but the interventions achieved some positive response. We, however, acknowledge that a lot more could have been done. While the response to last yearâs drought was acknowledged to have been good, it was largely a fire-fighting exercise. We were largely caught flat-footed. For instance, the Kenya Veterinary Vaccine Production Institute (KEVEVAPI) lacked the capacity to produce certain vaccines in good time to save livestock, while the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) was unable to absorb all the animals that the drought suddenly made available for slaughter. Early preparation is going to be critical not only during the approaching drought season, but in tackling problems in future. The Government will not be caught unprepared this time round. I have, in this regard, directed the Ministry of State for Special Programmes, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Medical Services, Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Ministry of Education, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security, Ministry of Livestock Development, Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Semi Arid Lands and Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife to start making all the necessary arrangements to ensure that our citizens are cushioned. We have directed all responsible sectors to develop contingency plans, or to revise their existing plans to prioritize and focus on areas where Government investment would create greatest positive impact. They must begin mobilizing available resources to target priority La Nina interventions. Further, we have directed all the sectors to adopt good past practices that would help to mitigate against the La Nina effects. We have further instructed the Ministry of Livestock Development to start working with pastoral communities to preempt deaths of animals. The pastoral communities lost their livelihoods in the last drought and they are yet to recover. The Ministry must focus on building the capacity of critical institutions like KEVEVAPI so that they can carry out effective and timely responses to La Nina related cases. We have also learnt vital lessons from the past drought and those lessons will continue to shape how we move on to the future. After the bumper harvest in most parts of the country last year, word spread soon that the grains were going to waste due to aflatoxin. To respond to the fears intoxication of grains, the Government provided testing kits to various parts of the country. The tests have so far shown that the extent of the problem may have been exaggerated. While testing may have saved lives, it did not solve the problem of what farmers had to do with the grains once they had been certified fit for human consumption. We learnt the hard way that, while good rains bring bumper harvest, our farmers lack the facilities to store the produce in a health environment free from the intoxicating elements until the next harvest. It is for this reason that we have asked the Ministry of Agriculture to come up with proposals on how to help our farmers to store their produce. We have also asked the Ministry to come up with a programme for constant education to our farmers on the best practices of drying produce. The Ministry of Agriculture has assured us that we have enough maize at the Kenya National Cereals and Produce Board. We will achieve full capacity if the Board moves fast and locks up that maize before it is sold across our borders. We have also asked the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) to buy and stock the maize in readiness for the drought ahead. We do not want to run around looking for maize like we did last time. Mr. Speaker, Sir, during the last drought, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation drilled 158 boreholes and also developed several water pans and dams in addition to over 2,000 tanks distributed across the country. We have asked the Ministry to review the state of all these initiatives and prepare a report on the state of our water preparedness as a country. Also, at the height of the drought in October 2009 up to 5.8 million people were relying on relief food. Of these, 1.7 million school children were covered under the School Feeding Programme while some 3.8 million were targeted under the Government of Kenya (GoK) and World Food Programme (WFP) protracted relief and recovery operation. We have asked the Ministry of State for Special Programmes to come up with a water-tight plan for distributing food to affected populations working closely with the Red Cross and other agencies to ensure food reaches everyone who needs it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, to ensure continuity and to benefit from experience, we have extended the mandate of the Crisis Response Committee (CRC) by another one year, to continue dealing with the coming La Nina effects. I also appeal to the Ministry of Agriculture to move with speed and provide relevant seeds and other farm inputs for our farmers to take advantage of the short rains. I want to conclude by emphasizing to hon. Members that to make a mistake is human, but to repeat a mistake is criminal. When we faced the drought last year, we embarked on massive fire fighting and we largely did a good job at it. However, fire fighting cannot be our policy for responding to crisis. I do not want this country to go through what we did last year. I want us to prepare. We cannot hope to realize Vision 2030 when natural disasters like floods and droughts still kill our people who also have to line up for food handouts. We, therefore, shall not only concentrate on the short term mitigation measures but also include long term interventions that will address underlying issues which cause food, water and energy crisis. As a Government and leaders, we must strive to give our people the dignity and pride they deserve. We know what we expect. Let us all do our part to ensure the past does not recur. Thank you."
}