Starving 1.3m to wait longer for State relief funds

What you need to know:

Treasury says request for State relief money will go through normal approval process before the funds are released.
This comes as the country grapples with a severe drought that has left more than 1.3 million starving.

Families gripped by hunger will continue to suffer following delayed request for funds from the Treasury to buy relief food.

Treasury principal secretary Kamau Thugge on Tuesday told Parliament that they received the request on Monday and that it will still have to go through the normal approval process before the funds are released.

This came as the country grapples with a severe drought that has left more than 1.3 million starving.

The request came from the inter-ministerial team and seeks Sh1.6 billion for food relief, Sh1.3 billion for agriculture, Sh743 million to tackle health concerns linked to hunger, Sh620 million for livestock uptake and Sh446.5 million for water in the affected areas.

“We received the request yesterday (Monday) and we will move with speed. But it will have to go through the normal processes including getting approvals from the Controller of Budget,” Dr Thugge told the National Assembly’s Committee on Agriculture.

Agriculture secretary Willy Bett and his Devolution counterpart, Mwangi Kiunjuri, also appeared before the committee.

The government needs to buy maize from farmers currently harvesting their crop or import the grains given the national strategic food reserve is almost depleted. It could take weeks before the food reaches the affected areas.

The government, through the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, has issued a hunger alert and named Kilifi, Kwale, Tana River, Taita Taveta, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Isiolo, Marsabit, Makueni, Kitui, Samburu and Kajiado counties as most affected.

The food shortage has been attributed to the poor rains during the March-May period.

The national strategic food reserve is holding 731,000 bags of maize, which the Agriculture ministry reckons are inadequate to meet the needs of those affected by hunger.

The reserve has been depleted by sale of maize to millers to curb the rally in flour prices—the country’s staple food and an inflation driver.

Kenya consumes some 3.2 million bags of maize per month translating to approximately 40 million bags annually. It requires a minimum of 3.2 million bags of maize in the reserve.

READ: Maize stocks at strategic reserve to last two weeks

Traditionally, the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) starts buying maize from farmers from October, when the harvest season starts, to replenish stocks.

Farmers have been hesitant to sell their maize to the NCPB, claiming Sh2, 300 a bag was to little—prompting the state to add a rebate of Sh500 a bag to persuade the growers.

Mr Bett expects the food crisis to ease with the ongoing maize harvests in the bread basket of North Rift.

Food security report indicates that maize yields will this year fall to 32.2 million bags, down from the 36.8 million bags harvested in 2015, reflecting a 12 per cent drop.

A poor crop for Kenya’s staple food is set to exert pressure on inflation on high maize prices, cripple the milling plants and hit the government budget because of imports of the grain to ease the forecast shortage.

Reduced maize crop will expose Kenyans to surging prices and jerk inflation that has remained in the single digit range and within government targets.