Former Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale on Tuesday, July 21, condemned Governor Wycliffe Oparanya for allegedly preparing a public graveyard in readiness of an anticipated increase of covid-19 deaths.
Khalwale accused the governor of investing more in graveyards rather than in preventive and treatment strategies for Covid-19.
"He has been given Ksh100 million by the county assembly to fight coronavirus and instead of fighting the disease using that money, he has gone and bought land in Mumias and Lukiyani so as to be burying our people when they die from the virus," Khalwale stated.
Efforts by Kenyans.co.ke to contact governor Oparanya for a response were not successful by the time of publishing.
Other than Kakamega, other counties like Kisii and Siaya are said to have also identified land that can accomodate grave yards.
Nakuru County has expressed the need to acquire grave sites, indicating that Nakuru North and Nakuru South cemeteries were filled up.
The County Lands, Housing and Physical Planning CeC Frank Mwangi maintained that the county was not acquiring the lands in anticipation of Covid-19 deaths but because the available space had already been filled up.
“We are on course and we are not fast-tracking the procurement of the cemetery land because of Covid-19 as we don’t wish our people to die. We want a new cemetery because the ones we have are full,” Mwangi stated.
Between the months of May and June, Kenya has reported a significact rise in the number of deaths.
In fact, the World Health Organisation ranks Kenya as number 10 in Countries with the biggest death increase with Chile, Columbia, South Africa, Argentina, Philippines, Guatemala, Pariamma, Serbia and Israel leading..
The data shows that Kenya's death toll rose from 21 on May 1 to 222 on Friday, July 17. Hence, 201 cases were reported over the three-month period and an average of 67 deaths per month.
By June 1, 2020, Kenya had recorded 69 fatalities, meaning that between June and Friday, July 17, Kenya recorded 153 more deaths an average of 3 deaths per day for 47 days.
Currently, Kenya has recorded 14,168 Covid-19 positive cases. Of this, 250 had died while 6,258 had recovered.
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