By STEVE MKAWALE

Providing water to residents of the drought-hit northern Kenya has been a challenge to the Government and donors.

Government bureaucracy, high cost of drilling boreholes and other factors have left many water projects in the region either abandoned or implemented months after the effects of the drought have been felt.

Failed rains and years of under-development have led to chronic water shortages among the pastoral communities, forcing some of them to move with their animals in neighbouring countries in search of water and pasture.

Many people in Wajir North constituency have been forced to cross, with their camels and cattle, to Ethiopia and Somalia in search of pasture.

Water tankers

Efforts by Non-Government organisations (NGOs) to provide the commodity to residents have not made much change, as the water tankers take days to reach those in the interior.

It is for these reasons that an NGO has imported drilling rig worth over Sh52million to address the problem.

Pastoralist Heritage Concerns, an NGO associated with Wajir North MP Hussein Gabbow, has teamed up with local and international donors to ship a rig that has the capacity to drill more than 400m and cut the cost of drilling boreholes  by about 50 per cent.

“Currently one requires about Sh800, 000 to sink boreholes,” says the legislator who is the patron of the organisation.

The modern rig comes in three parts; the first part being the service van, the second carrying the drilling rig. The third is a tanker carrying 20, 000 litres of diesel and water.

“When the drilling team leaves for the field, they concentrate on the job because they carry with them everything they require,” Gabbow says.

The new drill rig will not be used for commercial purposes, he says. “We will partner with other NGOs and community-based organisations in northern Kenya when it comes to drilling boreholes.”

The legislator said the drilling machine sourced from Italy is financed by Umbra  (Italian company), World Wide Opportunities for Women (Canadian-based NGO), Agre Irrigation and Bead Afric.

When launching the machine at Pastoralist Heritage Concern Head office in Karen, Nairobi, the MP observed Government bureaucracy was to blame for underdevelopment.

He says even when one is a Member of Parliament his contribution to development is impeded by the laws governing the Constituency Development Funds

(CDF).