Government shopping for partners in multi-billion Galana project

KILIFI, KENYA: The national government has refuted claims that there are plans to privatize the controversial 1.7 million-acre Galana/Kulalu irrigation project located in Kilifi and Tana River counties of the coast.

Agriculture Principal Secretary Richard Lesiyampe said the national government is only looking for strategic partners who can put the land into productivity.

“This is miscommunication, it is not true that we want to give that land to private individuals or want to sell it, does not exist. There is no government land that can be sold without going through Parliament,” said Lesiyampe.

Speaking to journalists after an induction meeting with the members of the National Assembly Agriculture Committee at the Sarova Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa, the PS said they will be transparent in bringing on board the strategic partners.

“We want to bring all land that is arable and that is idle under agriculture. In the framework of doing this, the issue will be public and open,” he said.

He said the Jubilee government is not in a business of doing farming, but rather putting down strategies and framework of enabling locals and other private companies to do farming.

“The only thing I would like to mention here is that the government is in the business of doing farming. What we are saying is that we are going to bring on board strategic partners who can indeed do farming, and who will actually put that land into production,” he said.

Last week, about 10 MPs from Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi and Tana River counties vowed to evict whoever would be private developer, who will be allocated land by the government.

Former Water Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa, who has now been transferred to Devolution Ministry, had said that the government will hand over 20,000 acres of the Galana/Kulalu project to private firms to increase the acreage under maize.

Coast leaders, among them Kilifi governor Amason Kingi, came out guns blazing accusing the Jubilee government of failing in the development of Sh400 billion project.

The project, which was launched in 2014, billed as the Kenya’s long wait solution to the perennial food insecurity, is now being criticised as a failed project by Coast leaders. They want it reverted to the county government of Kilifi and Tana River.

In 2014, the government signed a Sh14.5 billion-deal between the National Irrigation Board (NIB) and an Israeli firm, Green Arava (GA), to fast track the setting up of the model farm.