President William Ruto has emphasised the urgent need for Kenya to construct at least 50 mega dams — similar in scale to the Thwake Dam.
The dams will be part of a long-term strategy to combat food insecurity and reduce the nation’s heavy reliance on food imports.
Speaking during the launch of Phase 1 Infrastructure at Konza Technopolis on Monday, Ruto said the dams are essential to transform Kenya’s agricultural landscape and reduce the country’s annual food import bill, which currently stands at over Sh500 billion.
“We are spending Sh500 billion importing food into the country — edible oil, wheat, rice, sugar, maize sometimes,” Ruto noted.
“We need to save that money. We have almost exhausted land under rain-fed agriculture. We must now move to irrigation.”
The president said the country has made commendable progress in stabilising food security but admitted more work lies ahead.
“We have just laid the foundation. To truly make progress,
we need to build 50 mega dams like Thwake to irrigate two million acres of
land,” he said. “This will not only ensure food security but also enable us to
export agricultural products to the global markets we have secured.”
Ruto cited various international trade agreements, including the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which gives Kenya access to a market of 1.4 billion people, and the European Union (EU), whose 420 million citizens have high spending power.
“We have negotiated for access under AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act), and just concluded talks with China,” he added, underscoring the untapped potential of these markets due to insufficient local production.
To realise the 50-dam vision, Ruto estimated that Kenya will need to invest approximately Sh1.5 trillion.
He reiterated his campaign promise to construct 100 large dams across the country to enable a shift from over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture to year-round irrigation.
The Thwake Dam, which Ruto used as a model example, is a multipurpose water development project located on the Athi River at its confluence with the Thwake River.
Straddling the border of Makueni and Kitui counties, it lies about 180 kilometres southeast of Nairobi and 30 kilometres north of Wote town.
Once completed, the Thwake Dam will supply 150,000 cubic meters of treated water daily to over 1.3 million people in Kitui, Makueni, and the fast-developing Konza Technopolis.
Additionally, the project will support the irrigation of 40,000 hectares of farmland and has provisions for hydropower generation and other infrastructure developments.
The reservoir will span approximately 2,900 hectares, stretching 12 kilometres upstream, and drawing from a catchment area of about 10,276 square kilometres — 35 per cent of which is arable land.
