Punish people who killed Bura scheme

When the government entered a deal with an Indian firm in 2013 to rehabilitate and expand the Bura Irrigation Scheme at the Coast, questions were raised about the viability of the project, given its history of failure. The project was planned to raise the area under irrigation to 15,000 acres, from 6,000 and was to cost Sh7.3 billion when completed by March 2019. But the questions were hushed and the public was assured that the new deal was watertight and would deliver results this time round.

Six years later, the project has collapsed. IVRCL, the company contracted to do the work, is bankrupt and the matter is now in court.

But the point of discussion is that taxpayers stare at the loss of billions of shillings through injudicious decisions. But these are not just poor decisions but well-calculated schemes to defraud the public. Experience has shown that most of the multibillion-shilling projects are designed to fail. They are crafted to provide opportunities for siphoning money from the public coffers through networks that span continents.

Bura Irrigation Scheme, based on the Tana River Basin, was initially established in 1977 through World Bank support and was intended to expand food production. That initial project collapsed in the mid-1990s due to pilferage, poor management, crop failure and lack of market for the crops. This is the fate that befell other irrigation projects across the country.

The case of Bura is upsetting, given the experience with other projects. In the same neighbourhood, the government launched the Galana Kulalu project in 2014 at a cost of Sh7 billion to irrigate some 10,000 acres. Part of the work was done but the project is a flop. Right from the start, it was doomed to fail. The initial acreage put under irrigation could not justify the investment. The cost of production was higher than the output, making it a futile enterprise.

Food production remains a major challenge. Every year, the country suffers serious food deficits, which is the reason investment has to be made in irrigation to expand capacity. Yet these projects never come to fruition.

Something is not right. Irrigation works elsewhere. We have to establish why our irrigation projects cannot work. The government has to rethink the strategy on irrigation projects to guarantee food security. Importantly, it must deal with the people who design them to fail.