The National Assembly adjourned business on Wednesday to discuss the ravaging hunger amid reports that 1.3 million Kenyans are facing famine.
MPs faulted the government for failing to put in place long term mitigating measures to prevent the country from plunging into cycles of drought in arid and semi-arid areas.
They also accused both national and county governments of not having centralised intervention mechanisms dedicated to mitigating famine.
Mandera North MP Noor Mohammed tabled a morion on drought and food shortage to debate the worrying situation that is affecting more than 10 counties predominantly in the Northern Corridor and Coastal region.
They include Kwale, Tana River and Taita Taveta.
Others are Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Isiolo, Marsabit, Makueni , Kitui and Samburu
"The resources have never been enough. The government should not wait until the situation gets out of hand to declare a national disaster; it should rise up now and mobilise resources to mitigate the situation," he said.
"Let us have a process that is coordinated from one centre than fragmented approaches by different sectors," he said.
Majority Leader Aden Duale told the House that the government will spend Sh2 billion to mitigate the effects of drought.
He said President Uhuru Kenyatta will next week launch a large scale intervention to alleviate hunger among the starving millions.
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“The military the NYS, the various waters service boards will mobilise resources and we will have at least 80 water buzzers dispatched to the affected counties by next week,” Duale said.
County government from the affected regions came under a barrage of criticism for failing to pump meaningful investments into relevant sectors that can alleviate suffering in times of drought.
“The ten affected counties have received over Sh160 billion for the last three years. It would be morally wrong for a governor to stand before cameras and say, where is the national government? You have no moral ground to accuse anybody else, you must give our people what has been allocated to counties,” Duale said.
Wajir woman rep Fatuma Ibrahim urged counties and the national government to be more proactive to address drought and its worst effects.
“What we are doing is that we are doing is reactive intervention instead of well laid out strategies to cushion farmers, drought is a natural phenomenon but we can mitigate that,” she said.
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