By Juliet Omelo: NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 25 –Environment and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Keriako Tobiko on Thursday inaugurated a new Kenya Water Towers Agency (KWTA) board which will now be headed by former Kitui Governor Julius Malombe.
Malombe was appointed chairperson of the KWTA through a gazette notice published on May 3.
KWTA was established 2012 with the sole mandate of protecting conserving and rehabilitating critical water towers in the country.
“Our core principle is to protect, construct and rehabilitate water towers,” Malombe reiterated.
“Kenya is a water scarce country and therefore protection and conservation of water towers is crucial,” he added.
Speaking when he met the board at KWTA’s offices at the National Insurance Hospital Fund (NHIF) Building, CS Tobiko directed the officials to facilitate and coordinate evictions of people who have encroached into water towers and other catchment areas.
He urged the board focus on the rehabilitation of parts of the Mau Forest Complex which to a great extent informed the need to constitute KWTA.
Tobiko urged the board not to be swayed by politicians who he said had politicized ongoing efforts to reclaim water catchment areas.
He attributed environmental degradation and pollution to greed, corruption and utter impunity by both the leaders and Kenyans in general, saying there cannot be industrial growth and sustainable economic development if forests are destroyed.
“It is the height of retrogression for a country to destroy its environment and forests under the pretext of industrial development,” he noted.
Tobiko said that the achievements of the agency will not be measured by the number of reports they write but by how much action they put into the identified work plan.
Tobiko also encouraged the board to work towards the attainment of the minimum forest cover of 10 per cent – a UN recommended forest cover ratio – by 2022.
“The Agencies strategic plan should be aligned to the realization of the United Nations recommended 10 per cent forest cover by 2022 from the current 7.2 per cent,” said the CS.
The ministry had on March 8, 2018, announced an ambitious program aimed at increasing the country’s forest cover from the current 7 per cent (estimate) to 15 per cent by 2022.
READ: Kenya aims for 15pc forest cover by 2022
“The weatherman has issued his predictions and guided by those we have decided to commence a series of tree planting activities. We intend to plant a total of 10,000 trees today alone,” Tobiko briefed the media shortly after leading the tree planting exercise at the Ngong Forest at the time.
Then National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) Director-General Prof. Geoffrey Wahungu, had said some 235 million seedlings will have been planted by the year 2022 to realize the 15 per cent forest cover ambition.
The tree planting campaign followed the unveiling of a taskforce charged with the mandate of reviewing forestry management at Deputy President William Ruto’s official residence in Karen on May 7, 2018.
The taskforce headed by the Green Belt Movement Chairperson, Marion Wakanyi Kamau, was gazetted by Tobiko on February 26 following Ruto’s declaration of a three-month moratorium on timber harvesting on February 24.
