Food shortage related problems come from insecurity, Says Turkana Governor Josphat Nanok.

Turkana Governor Josphat Nanok on Sunday said that the drought situation in his County is culminating.

Speaking in an interview with KTN News Television, Nanok said most problems aggravated to food shortage in Turkana are linked to insecurity and cattle rustling.

“We have lost over 400 water sources in Turkana due to drought, but this has mixed with other issues like insecurity, which has led to hunger.” said Nanok.

The governor added that his county lose at least 10 people from insecurity and cattle rustling, which has proved a hiccup for fighting starvation and food insecurity.

Asked what the county has done in a bid to mitigate drought and other disasters like floods, Nanok said his county has tried, owing to the fact that it was marginalized for the past 50 years since independent.

“Since Independent, 79% of Turkana has been poor in terms of food security, health, education and other social amenities. It is devolution that has trickled small changes.” he said.

“We have set aside a combined kitty of emergency funds to Sh 600 million as a county, with 250 million slated for food.”

He added that the county usually stocks around 300 tones of maize for emergency, and the distribution is underway.

“We will be distributing food until September. We will also be launching inter-agency rapid assessments monthly starting next month.” said Mr. Nanok.

The governor admitted that the county has not done much on water harvesting and floods mitigation in case the long rains appear again.

He said that dams are projects that require huge capital funding and only the national government can handle that.

“I hope Turkana gets 5 of the said dam projects.” The governor said in regard to Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri’s recent remark that the government will build 31 dams to salvage drought in two weeks time.

In response to hunger-related death, Nanok said no such instances have been confirmed in Turkana.

“There are no confirmed starvation related death yet, but we know people are stretched.” said the governor.

The government has since denied claims to hunger-related death in drought affected regions.