Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi has pledged to reclaim the Galana part of the Galana-Kulalu irrigation scheme if re-elected.
The project extends to Kilifi and Tana River counties.
Noting it is a game changer in matters food security, Kingi accused the government of
using it as a cash cow.
He said the Jubilee administration has injected billions of taxpayers' money into the project yet the returns are minimal.
“If there was a good idea the Jubilee government bore, it was the Galana-Kulalu irrigation project. That project, if well undertaken, will surely make Kenya food secure," he said.
"It is however sad to note that the government had motives other than making the country food secure. The amount of money used does not match the maize produced."
He spoke at Bamba trading centre on Wednesday during a tour of development projects in Ganze sub-county.
The ODM county boss said the government used Sh7 billion on the project yet only produced 60,000 bags of maize.
"You can do your calculations to know how much each bag of maize appears to have cost. We must take over this project as a county...this I will do once re-elected,” he said.
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Kingi further accused President Uhuru Kenyatta and DP William Ruto of lying to Kilifi residents that he is responsible for the hunger in the county.
During the President’s visit to commission Kakuyuni Marafa water project at Marereni in March, he referred Kilifi residents to the Governor when they raised concerns of starvation amid a drought.
“Agriculture is devolved and we gave your Governor funds. He should be in a position to tell you what he did with the money,” said Uhuru.
But Kingi challenged the President to relinquish the Galana project if agriculture was fully devolved.
“If Uhuru knows agriculture was fully devolved why is he still holding on to the multi-billion shilling Galana-Kulalu irrigation project?" he asked.
"Let him give the project to the respective counties and see if Kilifi and Tana River people will starve any more. I did my best to boost agriculture in Kilifi but I do not produce rain."
Kingi promised to rally his Tana River counterpart Hussein Dado to lobby for the devolution of the project.
“I wanted to undertake a similar project on Galana River but the government refused, claiming we could not use the same river for another irrigation project. The excuse was that it would threaten the existence of the river,” he said.
On March 14, Uhuru expressed anger at how Kingi has been "lying to people" about national government projects in his county.
He asked the Governor to stick to his lane and work towards fostering development in the county instead of hurling insults at the Jubilee administration.
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