CLEARING THE AIR ON BUSIA COUNTY COVID-19 FUNDS EXPENDITURE

CLEARING THE AIR ON BUSIA COUNTY COVID-19 FUNDS EXPENDITURE

When an accident occurs, a responsible medical officer fuels an ambulance, rushes the injured people to hospital, bandages & treats them – then later on, he accounts for the funds used/costs incurred – it would be foolish, inhuman and extremely odd for him to leave the injured by the side of the road as he seeks approval for the ambulance fuel and medication costs.

 

In similar regard it is worth noting that last year the top three / worst hit counties by covid-19 were Nairobi, Mombasa & Busia respectively.

Busia being a border County had to handle hundreds of truck drivers from Congo, Tanzania, Uganda as well as many parts of Kenya who tested positive for Covid-19, this emergency necessitated the urgent sourcing for hospital beds, ambulances, medicines, contact tracing, purchase of PPEs, oxygen etc etc – all this without support from the National Government at the moment. Busia also had to set up and maintain an isolation center at Alupe that was 99.99% occupied by non Busians, mostly the truck drivers crossing into Uganda & those crossing into Kenya.

The high number of covid cases in Busia even made it urgent, infact more urgent compared to many other counties to have hand washing facilities installed in Busia town and market centers, surely all these came at a cost. A cost that was extremely necessary.

 

Hence to accuse the Busia County leadership of having erred for not having sought clearance first before incurring these costs is to be dishonest.

If anything, the National Government should be thanking the people of Busia for having warmly received & treated Kenyans from all the other counties as well as foreigners.