Kirinyaga Senator James Kamau Murango, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, has criticized Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation Cabinet Secretary Eric Muriithi’s plan to form a task force to address the snail and rat infestation in the Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
Speaking in Gichugu on Sunday, Murango called the move unnecessary and wasteful.
“Mwea rice farmers don’t need a task force,” Murango stated. “They already know what is destroying their crops. What they need is pesticides to kill the snails. Forming a task force is just a way to misuse public funds.”
Murango urged the government to allocate funds for pesticides and traps to tackle the pest problem directly.
He argued that creating a task force would delay action, pointing out that the snail issue has been present since 2019.
On November 25, during a tour of the Mwea Irrigation Scheme, CS Muriithi announced plans to form a multi-industrial task force.
The main aim of the formed task force is to combat the rats and golden snails affecting rice farms in the area.
Poor prioritization
Murango criticized this approach, suggesting that the government prioritize repairing the poor roads within the scheme instead.
He described the roads as impassable, noting the significant cost rice farmers face in transporting their harvests.
“This harvesting season, farmers are spending Ksh. 1,000 just to transport a single bag of rice from the paddy to the main road,” Murango said. “The deplorable state of the roads is a bigger issue than forming a task force.”
Farmers in the scheme have expressed frustration, accusing the government of neglect. According to residents, the roads have not been repaired since the late President Mwai Kibaki’s tenure, when funds from the Economic Stimulus Program (ESP) were used.
CS Muriithi acknowledged the road challenges during his visit, estimating that over Ksh. 700 million would be needed to repair the 600 km of damaged roads in the irrigation scheme.
Annual fee
Farmers have threatened to stop paying the Ksh. 5,000 annual fee to the National Irrigation Authority if no improvements are made.
“There’s no point in paying the fee if the government isn’t addressing the issues in our farms,” one farmer stated. “We are suffering losses because we can’t transport our rice.”
The Mwea Irrigation Scheme, established in 1954 with just 65 acres, has since expanded to cover a gazetted area of 30,050 acres.
Despite its growth, farmers feel abandoned and demand urgent action to resolve their challenges.
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