Moi says 80 percent of Kenyans hit by drought

President Daniel arap Moi appealed to the international community on Wednesday for US $148 million in aid to combat
a drought which put 80 percent of the Kenyan population at risk.

Moi, who called a press conference at State House to make his appeal, said the crisis was entirely the result of natural causes, which his government could do nothing to prevent. "Due to circumstances which are beyond her control, Kenya is in the grip of very worrying natural calamities," he said. "Eighty percent of the Kenyan population is currently at risk." He
said three million people were absolutely destitute.

Kenya is among five countries targeted in an emergency UN appeal for $378 million to alleviate the effects of drought in the Horn of Africa. That appeal puts the number of seriously affected Kenyans at 2.2 million - or 7.3 percent of the country's total population.

WFP spokesperson Brenda Barton told IRIN that her agency had worked closely with the Kenyan government to assess the number of Kenyans severely affected and had jointly reached the figure of 2.2 million to 3.3 million. But she said many more were likely to be affected in other ways.

"It all depends on how you define 'at risk'. It could be argued that many people here have been touched by the drought in some way or other - by power cuts, inflation or other hardships that could be linked to the drought," she said.

Moi said his government, which is frequently been accused of economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and squandering of assets, could not be blamed for the current crisis, which was "wholly due to natural calamities which have befallen our beloved country." He said Kenya had suffered from almost continuous poor weather for the past eight years - a dry spell from 1992, interrupted by the El Nino floods of 1997-8.

This month, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company introduced swingeing power cuts across the country to deal with a shortage blamed on the drought which had caused water levels at hydro-electric dams to fall to unprecedented low levels. Industrial and domestic users are now facing cuts of at least 12 hours a day.

The new measures - which follow less severe cuts imposed six months ago - threaten to put many small-scale manufacturers and other businesses out of operation in a country where per capita income is below $300 per annum and nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.