𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟲, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰

The Departmental Committee on Blue Economy, Water and Irrigation chaired by Hon. David Bowen (Marakwet East) met with officials from the State Department for Irrigation, led by the Principal Secretary, Mr. Ephantus Kimotho, to discuss the 2024 Budget Policy Statement (BPS).

 Mr. Kimotho told the Committee that the State Department for Irrigation has a total resource requirement of Kshs.81.7 billion in FY 2024/25, against an allocation of Kshs.23.9 billion, which results in a resource gap of Kshs.57.7 billion.

 Some of the key outputs and targets highlighted by the PS included increasing the area under irrigation from the current 694,000 acres to 863,255 acres, through the expansion of public schemes, implementation of community-based smallholder irrigation projects, water harvesting and strong initiatives for irrigation, to boost food production.

 Further, the State Department plans to complete the expansion of the area under the Mwea Irrigation Scheme, from 25,000 acres to 35,000 acres, to enable the growing of rice in two seasons. According to the PS this will result in the production of approximately 200,000 tonnes of rice annually. 

“If we expand the number of acres put under irrigation and fully focus on production, we will be able to produce enough maize and rice to sustain us as a country,” Mr. Kimotho said.

 Members questioned the plans to construct 8,000 household water pans and the drilling of boreholes and installation of greenhouses in 70 public schools for horticultural and tree seedlings production, wanting to know the criteria that will be used during selection.

 In his reply the PS said the process will be done fairly, and will involve members of the public through public participation where their views will be heard and considered.

 Hon. Bowen called upon the PS to ensure that his staff is utilized well in their respective areas of specialty, and also supported the request to decentralize services to different regions, as this saves a lot of resources of the staff travelling to different parts of the country for field work, while they could be fully stationed in those regions. He also assured the officials that the Committee will fully support them on their initiatives.