Members of Parliament have called on government to invest more in disaster preparedness and irrigation than repeated reliance on emergency food relief, which is unsustainable.
MPs made the call following a statement to Parliament by the Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, Hon. Sam Engola, on the status of disasters and government interventions. Engola presented the statement during the plenary sitting chaired by Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa, on Wednesday, 12 August 2026.
Engola said government is distributing relief food to 313,987 households in 480 parishes across the nine districts of Karamoja, with each household expected to receive 20kg of maize flour and 10 kg of beans.
The intervention follows acute food insecurity in Karamoja, where approximately 473,000 people are facing crisis-level food insecurity or worse, including 41,000 classified under emergency.
Adjumani District Woman MP, Hon. Jesca Ababiku, said government should prioritise irrigation to protect farmers from recurrent drought, and tasked the Agriculture Ministry to revisit its abandoned irrigation programme in the district.
“The issue of irrigation is key, the Ministry for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries did some site surveys in Adjumani district, five years ago, but nothing has happened. We are one of the worst hit areas with drought that has affected programmes under parish development model,” Ababiku said.
Napak District Woman MP, Hon. Faith Nakut, commended government for taking food directly to parishes but questioned the sustainability of relief interventions.
“Reports indicate that food distributed is finished; sustaining food relief is a difficult job,” Nakut said, adding that “Government has invested Shs45 billion this time. What about the next time. That is why I ask for the support of farmers to grow their crops.”
She also advised that government prepare for possible flooding following the drought saying, “we are battling with drought, what about flooding expected in weeks’ time? I implore government to deploy equipment for desilting. Let water move, otherwise this House will be burdened by many disasters related requests,” said Nakut.
Gulu City Woman MP, Hon. Betty Aol Ocan, called for restoration of government food reserves so as to be disaster prepared.
“We cannot wait for people to die in order to come to their rescue. There used to be silos – big government stores to keep food for help in times of disasters,” she said.
Hon. Francis Adome Lorika (NRM, Moroto Municipality), said about 2,000 households in his constituency have not received food and called for long-term solutions, proposing irrigation and planned resettlement of communities from disaster-prone areas.
Government is meanwhile developing an El-Nino contingency plan amid warnings of possible above the normal rainfall between September and December 2026. The plan will provide for the interventions to be implemented before, during and after the El-Nino rains, and will cover key sectors including agriculture and food security, works and transport, health, Minister Engola said.
Other interventions, according to Engola include a multi-sectoral dissemination of messages on early El-Nino warnings, ensuring that local governments enforce environmental laws that prevent people from settling in disaster prone areas.
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