KINANGO, Kenya, Jul 20 – The government has suspended the food for work program saying hunger stricken people cannot be subjected to manual labour before getting food.
Special Programme Minister Naomi Shabaan said it was wrong to subject those facing famine to digging trenches and making dams on empty stomachs.
Dr Shabaan was speaking after officially opening the CDF sponsored Makamini Secondary School and distributing relief food to residents of Kinango district.
The minister also announced the increase of allocation of food relief from 1,000 bags to 2,500bags monthly in Kinango constituency.
”The increment of allocation of relief food by the government was due to drought and famine in the area” she said.
The minister maintained that Kenya Red Cross was the government’s lead agent in distribution of relief food in the country.
She stated that 70 percent of food relief is from World Food Programme [WFP] while 30 percent was from the government.
Dr Shabaan urged the residents to embark on irrigation farming to alleviate food shortage in the country.
She asked parents to take their children to school and to stop discriminating the girl child and avoid early marriages.
The minister challenged them to embrace family planning methods to cope with the famine situation in the country.
”The hunger situation in the constituency is worse than the Internal Displace Persons [IDP’s]” she stated.
Local MP Gonzi Rai who is also an assistant minister for Lands said he was concerned about human- wildlife conflict in the area.
”Enough is enough! we are not going to allow wild animals to destroy our crops,” Mr Rai vowed.
He said authorities were more concerned about protecting the wild animals than human beings.
The area District Commissioner Apollo Okello said 120,000 people out of the entire population of 220,000 in the constituency were facing starvation.
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