Machakos county is set to spend sh2.5 billion in providing water to its residents in the 2015/16 fiscal year. This is part of the government’s plan of providing water to every homestead by the year 2017.
“By 2017 we want every homestead in Machakos to have water. This was part of our manifesto,”
County Executive Committee Member (CEC) Eng. Francis Maliti said over the weekend.
The county which is in a water scarce region is set to drill at least 1,000 boreholes by the target year. It also intends to construct as many dams as possible as it redoes the old ones that have been flattened by years of siltation.
“We have done 135 dams so far. For every ward we have done at least 3 dams,”
the CEC said adding that they had the machinery to do drill the boreholes and the technical know-how.
“We did a water needs assessment. We know which areas have water, the ones that don’t have and even the quality.”
He said once the water is harvested it would be distributed in schools, dispensaries, markets and dispensaries.
“It will be distributed in every direction within 3 kilometers,” he added.
Apart from the water-for-all dream the county also intends to turn itself into a ‘chicken county’. In his speech during the Machakos agricultural exhibition, Governor Alfred Mutua urged residents to embrace poultry keeping.
“We want every homestead to keep poultry,” he said.
He made the crowd burst into laughter when he sensationally reported that he even knew the number of chicken in the county.
“We have done a chicken census in the county and we will be announcing soon how many chickens we have,”
he added before urging the residents to also diversify into farming of green grams.
“We have identified a market for green grams in India. We will bring you seeds and once you harvest the county government will come and buy.”
Looking at what the Machakos county government has done so far in setting up development projects that directly touch on the welfare of its residents, one feels that anything they set on to will succeed. One can only wait to see the region which is among those that have initially been hit by drought transformed into a dream county.
