Kenyans are ranting as the ministry of health has allocated huge sums of money for tea, snacks and mobile phone airtime for its workers, saying it will aid them fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
This expenditure is part of the budget drawn out of the $9.3 million donated by the World Bank to Kenya as an emergency response fund during this pandemic.
Kenyans feel it is a misappropriation of funds because to them spending 4m Kenyan shillings ($37,000; £30,000) on tea and snacks, while another 2m Kenyan shillings were used to purchase airtime for staff is unwarranted. These findings from the health ministry’s budget are now public knowledge.
The budget included other items such as leasing ambulances, fuel, and stationery. Kenyan newspapers on Thursday ridiculed the expenditure and rebuked it in their headlines.
Many poor Kenyans have had to rely on donors to survive during the pandemic. The East Africans took to social media to express their displeasure about the budget.
Frontline healthcare workers are also in need of Personal Protective Equipment and many cannot believe the huge allocations made for tea, snacks and airtime.
“You are charging Kenyans for mandatory quarantine and subsequent treatment in time of a global pandemic while shamelessly telling us you spent tens of millions of ksh on printing and tea!” Njau Muchira tweeted.
“A certain ministry allocates itself 4 millions just on tea and snacks in 1 month while a woman in Mombasa resorts to boiling stones just to convince her children that there is food cooking,” Denzin tweeted.
“How you spend millions on tea and snacks while people don’t even have face masks is obnoxious and cantankerous,” Walter Nyauma tweeted.
