SERENGETI District Commissioner (DC), Nurdin Babu has refuted claims that his district is facing a shortage of food.
“The first thing I want to say is that there is no famine in Serengeti District and I want journalists to understand that,” Mr Babu said recently.
The DC insisted this when he was speaking to Serengeti councillors during a full council meeting. He was reacting to reports that linked the deaths of four children that happened in the district recently to starvation.
The incident occurred at Machochwe Village, several kilometres from Mugumu Town.
“We have visited the family of the four children and we are still investigating the cause of their deaths, but the cause is not scarcity of food,” Mr Babu told ‘Daily News’ after the full council meeting.
Other reports have it that the children died after eating contaminated cassava.
Mr Babu said farmers in Serengeti had utilised well ongoing rain to plant various food crops almost everywhere in the district.
“According to a report from the Department of Agriculture the price of maize per kilo in Serengeti is 1,100/-. Prices of other crops are low. So, there is no food shortage in Serengeti District,” he insisted.
The DC blamed the deaths of the children on families, saying they did not take care of their children well.
Serengeti councillors deliberated on various development agendas, including the development of the education sector.
The full council meeting awarded students who scored high marks at the latest primary and secondary national exams in the district.
The DC thanked the fifth phase government for setting up health and education facilities in the district.
“We thank the government of President John Magufuli for giving us 1.2bn/-to improve the health sector and 500m/-will also be provided,” Mr Babu said.
He noted that 800m/-of 1.2bn/-was spent on the construction of the district hospital and 400m/-on the construction of Natta Health Centre Serengeti is one of the districts of Mara Region.
