Kajiado Governor Voices Concern Over Drought in the County
According to Kajiado Governor Joseph ole Lenku, 110,000 families in his county have been impacted by the devastating drought that is currently affecting more than half of the counties across the nation.
Lydia Kadima 
The Kenya Red Cross reports that the drought has affected 29 counties, 12 of which are on red alert, and currently, more than 4.3 million people require continuous support with food and water.
On Sunday, the governor declared the situation to be critical and noted that Kajiado had been suffering from the drought for the last four months.
Lenku noted that 400,000 livestock require food in a primarily pastoral county with a population of about a million cows.
The county administrator also claimed that the wildlife in the county's portions of the Amboseli and Tsavo national parks had been negatively impacted.
“In the Amboseli National Park now, the first thing the wardens do in the morning is removing carcasses from the road. We are about to lose our people and we are losing livestock and wildlife in big numbers,” said the governor.
Due to the county's citizens' dependence on the sale of milk and meat as their primary source of income, the drought has in turn led to an economic catastrophe.
The governor has voiced concern that the situation won't get better very soon because weather predictions indicate that the widely anticipated short showers won't be enough.
“We don’t need rains, we need water because then we will have fodder for our animals and food for the people and the whole chain is complete again. Each dam will be equipped with a borehole so that throughout the year, the borehole which is solar-powered will have water,” Governor Lenku said.
The county has so far looked at joint ventures with the federal government and non-governmental groups to obtain food aid, but the governor says their long-term goal is to build dams that don't rely on rain to provide water.
