My dear friends,

I have read all your comments. I am afraid I still disagree on one point.

Most of you are trying to give the government a pass on this issue.

Why the hell then did so many Kenyans vote for them, if not not to address problems like this, which for many are literally a matter of life and death?

Why should the kind of poverty that Cheserem wept about be acceptable in Kenya today?

I'll tell you why. Because many of those with power think it is more important to take care of the minority rich than the majority poor.

Such thinking has to be reversed, otherwise our country is doomed.

The rich don't need help. The poor do. It makes economic, moral, political and social sense.

Why is it so hard to see this?

Not you Makerenge.

I don't always agree with you but on this one we can agree.

By the way RAO was my favorite politician. And then he became Crime Minister and proceeded to do f.ck all for the poor sods who died for him.

We need a revolution and not just a political one.

The suffering must all unite and know they are on their own......they must after that confront the leadership fo services to be rendered!!!

The other route is kinda utopian.....a leader with REAL people's problems at heart that will rise to the most top leadership position!!!!

Bro I can't agree more....our people must be empowereed, this is my best hobby, even now away from home I'm coordinating something I believe betters the lives of the people......the Govt of the day must take steps to show peopl the potential they can reach.......that villager in kitui will never do it on his own!!!!

Tycho, my brother, I am simply saying this. If we want it to happen we can make it happen. It is not rocket science. It has been done before.

Heck, we have done more complex and difficult things than this in Kenya.

The problem is attitude: we insist on seeing the poor as a liability, rather than as the an-utilized resource, which is what they are.

This needs to change.

Let me tell you where I'm coming from. Take a walk with me here. Imagine a child or even an adult facing malnutrition. What does that portend? Ill health of course, chiefly because the antibodies required to fight off infections are protein in nature. That means then such a person will spend more time bed-ridden due to illness and has no energy or indeed even time to attend school and/or engage in other economic activities. All because of lack of food, something that could easily have been alleviated if there was water.

Similarly, imagine a child who walks for 10kms (some walk longer by the way) in search of water for domestic use. Do you think such a child will have time to go to school? Of course not. And by the way, if they have to walk that far to get their drinking water, you can already begin to visualize that theirs is a rather dry, parched, hardly productive land.

With those two scenarios in mind, can you now see how the simple act of provision of water will impact on both healthcare and education standards? By the way, it's also a proven scientific fact that malnutrition especially in early life, results in stunted growth and development. Obviously the brain is most affected by this, which then means acquisition education becomes an uphill task. All because of lack of water. You can almost begin to see how that poor child in the interiors of the dry Ukambani, Turkana or indeed any other part of Kenya has to surmount incredible odds just to catch up with his well-endowed colleagues.

Now, take a walk to Mwea, and the interior of Kirinyaga district (huko pande za Kagio, Mbarichu, etc) and see the wonders of an act as simple as provision of water for irrigation purposes. You recall the wars they fought with the national irrigation board in the late 1990s? Thing is, soon as the NIB was kicked out, rice farming as well as use of irrigation water was kinda 'liberalized' to areas beyond the mwea irrigation scheme proper. Today, there's so much rice being produced in areas beyond the original scheme proper and in fact, right now as we speak, the Japanese gov't is almost finishing their project to rehabilitate the scheme as well as expand it by building more canals and increasing water supply. Why did this happen? Because the gov't long realized, practically, that the existing supply is inadequate and since there clearly is demand for more, why not? Talking of which, have you seen how fast Mwea town has grown in the last 10yrs or so?

In short, hata huko Ukambani in the remotest of places, let them put the first 1000acres under irrigation waone. Guys will swarm there like bees onto nectar and in no time, it'll be time to expand the project. Eventually, this area may well be our future bread-basket albeit untapped for now. Of course, by selling their surplus, they then get money to invest in alternative economic sectors and begin to sort of diversify their production, but the seed money will have come from agriculture. Of course as the area expands, settlements crop up creating demand for other services and in no time, the gov't will have to provide the requisite roads, hospitals, schools and other social infrastructure. You see how a simple act, provision of water, can have far reaching ramifications beyond our wildest of imaginations?

As I always say, droughts are natural occurences but famines are man-made. Right now as we speak, large swathes of the U.S are facing their worst drought in decades and so did Australia just the other day. But we're unlikely to hear of entire populations there facing certain death by hunger. You know why? Planning and implementation of programmes, part of which includes irrigation.

I say, give the hardworking farmer in Tseikuru some water and this country will never have to beg ndugu zetu to sell us green grams and other cereals again. Let's try it and see. I've seen the zeal with which they take to that land whenever it rains and it amazes me.

Sasa huyu Micah Cheserem was the Gabbana of CBK yaani his signature iko kwa noti ya M01. What was his greatest achievement at central bank?

If he went to one village in Kitui and cried what of he was to do a fully road tour in such counties as Kilifi-Ganze n Magarini, Kwale -Kinango and Taru / Samburu, pitia Taita Taveta, parts of rural Nyanza both Luo and Kisii where i saw land subdivided into 1/4 of an 1/8 na watu wanaishi. . . Tell me wazuans wont Cheserem go hang like the teaumatized journalist covering Ethiopia Drought in 84?

And to imagine the level of resource wastage in this garment.. .and MPigs and gabbanas thinking of themselves and their concubines it is soo sad.

Am sorry but Ukambani needs the likes of George Harun Mwau . . .

Agreeing with that one is futile.. He's against anything that hasn't been rubber-stamped by OAR. This bitterness with be the undoing of river-lakes. They should just agree and(punchline) move on!

Gava is you and me. We now have majimbo, I therefore believe we are on the right track. No more waiting on central gava.. each county will now take care of itself. What we need to do is wake-up as individuals and use available resources, that include but not limited to, local county gova

Am not giving government a pass on this issue. What am saying is that we should only work with it along its limits. More government isn't just about more taxes and laws, but also more inefficiency. Also, the dynamics of a global economy aren't amenable to central planning.

We certainly need leaders who are visionary and willing to uplift the living standards of the poor, and there's no doubt that we need to hold them accountable to these ideals. But we also need the right technique, and it can't be the technique is voting alone.

Yes. I agree @Wakanyugi.