Multimillion Kajiado irrigation white elephant – Weekly Citizen

Residents of Nguruman, Kajiado West sub-county want the national government to come to their rescue and repair the irrigation canals and pipes which were destroyed by flash floods in April 2018.
The more than 1,500 large and smallscale farmers who rely on irrigation are now struggling to survive as they can no longer produce enough food for domestic use and commercial purposes.
According to Nyumba Kumi village elder John Ole Ntukenya, the destruction of the water intakes and canals has been costly and no development is on the ground.

Ole Lenku

Nkuruman region, an area that has for years been labelled as the food basket of Kajiado county but now is a pale shadow of itself.
The area used to supply watermelons, mangoes, kales, maize, tomatoes, cabbages, onions, green grams, pepper and pawpaw to neighbouring Magadi, Ngong, Kajiado and Nairobi, but production has since gone down, Ntukenya added.
Some residents however, added that they were not consulted before the irrigation project was started and blamed engineers who designed the water intakes for doing a shoddy job which resulted in millions of shillings being literally swept away by raging waters.
The county commissioner Joshua Nkanatha revealed that water and agricultural experts would immediately embark on finding a long term solution that would prevent future destruction of water intakes and pipes when it floods.
Nguruman Irrigation Scheme was constructed at a cost of Sh318 million by the national government through the African Development Bank, was destroyed by flash floods with water off take points at the tributary of Entasopia and Oloibortortor rivers completely damaged.