Government can defend everything we promised Kenyans - Duale
The CS pointed out the country's reforestation efforts as an example of the government's commitment, highlighting Kenya's ambitious goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.
Cabinet Secretary for Environment Aden Duale has defended the government's record, dismissing claims that it has failed to deliver on its promises.
He insisted that everything pledged to Kenyans can be accounted for, despite challenges in some sectors.
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"You know, there's this notion that the government is lying—that is a fallacy. We can defend each and everything that we promised the people of Kenya," Duale said on Thursday during an interview.
"Some have challenges, like Social Health Authority (SHA) and the university education model, but in two and a half years, we can defend our scorecard," he added.
Duale was responding to a question on the accounting for the government's plan to plant 15 billion trees by 2032.
The CS pointed out the country's reforestation efforts as an example of the government's commitment, highlighting Kenya's ambitious goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.
According to Duale, Kenyans planted 750 million trees in 2024 alone. "If we didn't have this ambitious 15 billion climate change programme, maybe today we would be sitting here having planted only 10,000 trees. But we have done it."
Duale challenged the media to conduct a ground check and visit sites where large-scale tree planting exercises have taken place, including forests in Makueni, Ngong, Mau, and arid regions like Garissa.
He also defended the JazaMiti app, launched in 2023 to track tree-planting activities, saying it helps document efforts by both government and non-state actors.
"Our secretariat will go to the ground, they can account for government efforts, and they will also account for the non-state actors who report their activities. Our foresters are there, and slowly, we are trying to educate citizens on the app's usage," he said.
Duale maintained that despite propaganda and misinformation, the government remains on course to fulfil its pledges.
Reforestation campaign
The government's aggressive reforestation campaign began in 2023, leading to the designation of November 13 as a national tree-planting day by then-Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki.
In 2023, President Ruto launched an application dubbed JazaMiti to be used by Kenyans or institutions to document their tree-planting activities.
According to the Head of State, the app would be used by the government to monitor the growth of the trees in the journey to reach the 15 billion target by 2032.
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JazaMiti provides one an opportunity to learn how to accurately document and monitor your planting activities for effective data tracking and analysis.
By using the app, one can record the location, species, number of trees planted, and planting date. The also app allows one to enhance their documentation with photos and automated location information collection for better tracking and validation.
In terms of privacy, the App is governed by Kefri Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.kefri.org/components/jazamiti/privacy.html.
To further accelerate the initiative, the Interior Ministry directed all 3,950 chiefs in the country last November to plant at least 250 trees on the first Friday of every month.
This move was part of efforts to meet the ambitious national target.
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