President William Ruto on Sunday, October 22 announced that the country would not experience El Nino rains as earlier predicted by the Kenya Meteorological Department.
Ruto told Kenyans that the country would experience significant rainfall which would not be destructive which he argued was good for the country’s agricultural sector.
” You heard the news that we would experience El Nino that will destroy places and property. But who is God? You’ve heard they have said we won’t have El Nino,” Ruto stated.
The department has instead said that there will be rain but not to an extent of destruction, we will only have significant rains. We thank God. And with the rains that will come, we have planned ourselves and prepared our farmers so that we have another harvest,” he added.
He credited the successful rainy season to the prayer session which was held at the Nyayo Stadium in February.
“The country has since had prolonged rains which have allowed farmers to produce more for the country,” he said
“There are those who criticized us when we prayed for rains. We now have more rains than we have had in four years, that is God’s doing.”
The Met department had warned that El Nino will hit the country from mid-October to December.
This forced the national government and county governments to start early preparations for the heavy rains.
The national government team was led by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua while governors spearheaded the preparations at the county level.
Millions of shillings had already been spent on the preparations with governors demanding more allocation to prepare for El Nino rains.
The Council of Governors (COG) asked the national government to ensure that at least 50 per cent of the National Contingency Fund is set aside for access by the County Governments for El Niño preparedness and response activities.
According to CoG Chairperson Anne Waiguru, cumulatively counties only have about Ksh1 billion available in their budgets for El Niño disaster mitigations and response activities.
“We recognize that managing the impacts of El Niño requires resources. We will actively engage with the national government, development partners and private sector to ensure that the necessary funds and resources are available to support our preparedness and response efforts,” Governor Waiguru stated.
