CS Malonza discloses if funded for the next three consecutive years will turn-around the consumption habit in the department to an income generating parastatal
There are undisclosed number of international partners who have already signed pact agreements to boast ASALs development
Kerio Valley Development Authority exported tones of bee honey in last financial year, an indicator of performance target
The Ministry of East African Community, ASALs and Regional Development has decried of budgetary cuts from projected Ksh 61.74 Billion to Ksh 14.99 Billion for the Fiscal year 2024/2025
Appearing before National Assembly Committee on Regional Development Chaired by Maragua lawmaker Mary Wamaua, Cabinet Secretary for EAC, ASALs and Regional Development sought the committee’s intervention to exchequer for considerable increase
“We recommend this honourable committee to consider allocating adequate resources to enable the state department to complete it’s on-going programmes and projects especially those affected by budget cuts,” CS Ms Peninah Malonza appealed
According to CS, some of the programmes which will be affected are the integrated climate change resilience, planting 15 billions trees, relief food interventions for a population of 2.1 million- cost 2 billion shillings per 6 months who were affected by El-Nino rains as well as improving food security in the country
In the financial gap, Ksh 300 Million for Tana River Development Authority meant for rice production to a tune of 100 million bags wouldn’t be realized under the period estimated
“The reduction of Ksh 23 million in recurrent allocation at the authority [TARDA] is likely to cause inability to meet obligations to staff thus why we ate requesting reconsideration of the personal emoluments,” she added
In order to comply with government’s directive on digitization of services by the acquisition of an integrated knowledge management systems, department is seeking consideration of Ksh 100 Million for the programmes
This will improve the operations and maintenance budget allocation to assist in the running of the ASALs related operations at headquarters
Lake Basin Development Authority also experiences the pain cuts from 492.11 million to 475.26 million shillings which will greatly affect their operations especially medical insurance and board expenses plugging out 50 million shillings
According to Ms Malonza, if her Ministry is funded adequately for the next 2 or 3 years to come, she will upgrade it to income generating parastatals which can fund it’s operations and contribute to GDP instead of being a consumer
She discloses that one of the international partner has signed an agreement with the ministry seeking to be supplied with 100,000 cattles for meat every month but that wouldn’t be attainable because of poor livestock production in Kenya
“Honourable members, today, we should be the leading exporter of meat because Kenya is ranked third in Africa with land mass for livestock production but we lack the necessary inputs like resources for feedlots and rangelands.
Exporting 100,000 cattles per month will give us profit of equivalent of 300 million shillings per month which is approximately Ksh 3.6 Billion annually from just cattle production alone,” Ms Malonza detailed while divulging the pact agreements with international partners
There are partners who have shown interests in putting up livestock productions machines (feedlots) in Isiolo, others wants to put up camel milking plant in Wajir and meet processing plant in Mandera and Garrisa
In their projected budgetary allocations for the three financial years were Ksh 61.74 Billion, Ksh 65.20 Billion, and Ksh 55.14 Billion where they have been allocated Ksh 14.99 Billion, Ksh 16.44 Billion and Ksh 19.61 Billion respectively