Tana River County residents will have to wait longer for a mortuary as plans to build one are stuck in financial wrangles.
Efforts to build a mortuary have also faced opposition for the past five decades because of disagreements related to religious and traditional beliefs.
The administration of former governor Hussein Dado put up a structure for a mortuary worth Sh20 million but did not equip it, and it was turned into a store.
But in 2019, Governor Dhadho Godhana allocated Sh10 million to equip the morgue at Hola Referral Hospital with cold chambers.
Mr Godhana’s administration also set aside more than Sh20 million to build morgues at Ngao Hospital and Garsen Health Centre.
The plan, however, is now embroiled in another financial dispute, leaving residents exasperated.
The plan to equip the morgue at Hola Referral Hospital was ditched and instead the cold chambers procured for the facility were redirected to Garsen Health Centre.
At Garsen Health Centre, health department officers decided not to build a new mortuary in the designated area but instead chose to renovate and convert into a morgue a condemned building meant to be a paediatric ward.
But residents and the hospital committee, led by its chairman Galgalo Golo, objected to the decision.
The structure, Mr Golo said, was unfit for mortuary services as it was about to collapse and could cause harm to workers.
“As a committee, we had identified a site for the mortuary and advised the department about it but suddenly the chief officer and the health executive decided to ignore our recommendations,” he said.
He also noted that the location preferred by the health department would violate the Public Health Act, as it was adjacent to the theatre and maternity wing.
The chosen structure at Garsen Health Centre, he also noted, fell short of standards for a mortuary.
The committee wrote a protest letter to department officials, urging them to reverse their decision.
The officials ignored the letter, paid a contractor more than Sh10 million of the Sh19 million tender and insisted on fitting the cold chambers.
To their dismay, the equipment meant to be fixed at the Garsen facility failed to fit into the chambers.
After the setback, the department resolved to build a mortuary in Minjila, Tana Delta sub-county.
But this development is not captured in the county’s physical strategic paper or its sectoral budget, raising questions about its funding.
County officials, on the other hand, have allocated Sh20 million for building and equipping a morgue at Hola Level Four Hospital, though there is a structure built for over Sh20 million in the same area that requires only refrigerators for the cold chamber.
Civil society groups are now demanding accountability for money lost in the quest for a morgue before fresh developments can begin.
Regional Hub Budget Consortium secretary Daud Dahir said the plan appears to be a scheme to plunder public coffers ahead of elections.
“We can’t have this kind of irresponsible behaviour amid a pandemic and ahead of elections. This administration must be stopped from such plans,” he said.
Mr Dahir urged the Health executive to explain the source of the funding for the morgue building under construction in Minjila.
He has also asked the administration to make public the companies consulted and contracted to build the respective mortuaries.
Health executive Javan Bonaya could not be reached for comment, whereas the acting chief officer refused to comment on the issues.
