Ministry fails to bait farmers with commercial fishing drive

Millions of taxpayers money used to dig fish ponds in Nyeri County have gone down the drain because they were sub-standard.

But the Ministry of Fisheries and Development is in the second phase of another 100 fish ponds without any audit of the work previously carried out.

Water drains out of many fish ponds even as heavy rains pound the region while those with water have no fingerlings.

A number of them, especially in Nyeri Town constituency, are dry with overgrown weeds.

The ministry built 200 fish ponds in every constituency. It has now announced in the media plans to build another 100 ponds in the second phase.

The ministry has been allocated Sh2.866 billion this financial year under the Economic Recovery Poverty Alleviation and Regional Development programme for the ponds.

It will also build 300 ponds in every one of the 20 new constituencies countrywide.

The ministry’s public relations officer, Mr Patrick Odongo, acknowledges there was a shortage of fingerlings that left many ponds without fish.

“Ministry officials were misled by the committees in the constituencies in the larger Nyeri District,” Mr Odongo says.

He told the Nation on phone that the committees, comprising MPs and officials from the Constituency Development Fund gave bad sites for the ponds, adding, in most constituencies, politicians insisted the ponds be put up in places of their choice.

He said such committees will bear responsibility when project audits are carried out in every constituency.

But Nyeri Town MP Esther Murugi says she was only asked to give the name of a representative from her constituency for inclusion in the committee, which she did.

“I did not interfere with anyone’s work, nor did I even know where they were digging the ponds,” she says.

Ms Murugi acknowledges the ponds in her constituency cannot hold water and had asked the Fisheries ministry to provide them with polythene papers, which they did three weeks ago.

The MP, who is also the Special Programmes minister, laments the ponds in her constituency were not stocked with fingerlings as promised.

“The ministry should carry its own cross,” she said by phone.

Under the Economic Stimulus Programme, the ministry built more than 27,000 fish ponds in 140 constituencies and stocked them with over 15 million fingerlings in the past one year.

The ministry was allocated Sh1.12 billion in the first phase, with every constituency being given Sh8 million. According to Mr Odongo, a fish pond costs Sh25,000 to build.

Mr Odongo says youth in Tetu constituency started fish farming even before the government came in and were now marketing their produce.

Nyeri farmer Jackson Kanyinge said constructing more ponds is a waste of money, if existing ones are unproductive. Mr Kanyinge is an independent fish farmer since 2004.

Fisheries minister Amason King says in a report that about 20,000 hectares are under aqua-culture producing about seven per cent of the national fish output.

Aqua-culture has the potential to produce up to 200,000 tonnes of fish. It would also cushion farmers against food shortages and provide a nutritious diet.
Employ extension officers

Besides digging the ponds, the ministry will also build three shallow water-retention dams in 160 constituencies, support a private sector-driven fingerling supply chain and rural fish feed development. It will also hire 480 fisheries extension officers.

Small processing plants that serve as nerve centres for aquaculture, value addition and marketing at the constituency will also be established.

The minister says a national aquaculture research, development and training centre has been set up at Sagana to be administered by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, the ministry’s research arm.