Outrage as Kenya Govt spends Covid-19 funds on tea and snacks

Kenyans online are outraged after the government spent millions of shillings on tea, snacks and mobile phone airtime for ministry of health staff in the battle against coronavirus pandemic.

Some 4m Kenyan shillings ($37,000; £30,000) has been spent on tea and snacks, while 2m shillings has been used on airtime for staff, according to the ministry’s budget.

This is part of a budget of 10m shillings for tea and snacks for an unspecified period and 6m for airtime for three months.

Other items in the budget include leasing of ambulances, stationary and fuel.

The money was part of the $9.3m donated by the World Bank to Kenya for emergency response during the pandemic.

Kenyan newspapers on Thursday headlined with the expenditure. On social media citizens pointed out ed how poor Kenyans had nothing to eat and doctors do not have adequate protective equipment:

I am surprised not about the figures in the table but how the government of Kenya managed to convince world bank to give them kshs. 1 billion. Like how can you approve over kshs. 20 millions to go on useless stuffs like tea, snacks, printing of forms and airtime? #thieves pic.twitter.com/P9V4Vp071u

— ПИТЕР (@Wekesa_95) April 29, 2020

“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.

“How you spend millions on tea and snacks while people don’t even have face masks is obnoxious and cantankerous,” Walter Nyauma 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.

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