Mukumu Girls High School deaths stain on politics

I would like to tell our politicians that deaths are reported of three school girls and a teacher at Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls High School due to a mysterious illness. However, this mysterious illness now turns out to be E. coli and salmonellosis—two diseases that can easily be prevented through good hygiene.

The diseases also led to hospitalisation of over 600 secondary students from Mukumu Girls and Butere Boys, both in Kakamega County. Politicians need reminding of these things as they care little of the impact their incompetence and greed causes.

While all this was going on, the wives of county executives were demanding ‘spousal kitty’ (aka personal allowances) as if what their marital partners steal is not enough to kill us. They exemplify what is wrong with creating unconstitutional offices. Had the wife of Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi (whose office is unconstitutional, by the way) did not demand ‘spousal allowance’, we wouldn’t have the problem of this type of greed growing in the counties. County officials are given a budget and mandate to deliver services to their people.

If the spouses care that much, they can do charitable work and volunteer in their villages using their own money. That is caring too.

Greed

I keep going back to the story of John Githongo in Michela Wrong’s 2009 book, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower, and the message has really come to pass. ‘Eating’ is what every elected leader—from the MCA to the very top—goes into politics to do, and that includes their spouses, tribesmen and clanfolk. The price of greed is death of innocent children from unsanitary conditions in their schools for lack of clean drinking water. Shame on you, politicians and your spouses, for you have the blood of these school children in your hands!

Service delivery is not a joke. People’s lives depend on it. It is a matter of life and death as the demise of school children in Kakamega shows. After nearly 60 years of independence? And people still dying of preventable diseases in a country with the highest-paid politicians? We really have ourselves to blame, voters! If Kenyans did not look at short-term gains through cheap ugali and 100 bob bribes, they would have elected many other Kenyans with integrity and able to deliver services not just for them but their children too.

Prevention of E. coli and salmonellosis is dependent on clean drinking water, good sanitation and a safe and clean cooking environment. Schools and hospitals should be the first to perform at the highest standards of hygiene due to the sheer number of people who use such facilities. Most of our schools and hospitals still rely on pit latrines and/or open defecation. I bear witness to open defecation in public hospitals.

Indictment on the government

These facilities that one expects to be the last to put public health at risk are the first place with no clean running water, wash facilities and proper toilet and sewers. This goes for many public hospitals, government buildings and airports across the country.

The deaths of the school children from contamination is an indictment on the government, both local and national. They bear the full responsibility for this loss to the families of the children and the schools. I hope the bereaved families will get compensation for their loss due to negligence, though no amount can be sufficient for that. In a just system, heads would be rolling for failing the children. Had elected leaders turned up to work like every other employee with contractual obligations, we would, perhaps, be in a better shape as a country and stopped such negligence from occurring.

Politicians are good at picking up their salaries but terrible at quantifying their work. Somebody once asked why there is no binding contract between politicians and the voters, so that we can hold them responsible for any breach of the law. And I second that question. Without making politicians legally obliged to carry out their work, (forget the macerated Constitutional requirements), we would have a country to be proud of, where officials work diligently to serve, take responsibility for their mistakes and get sued for those failures.

Waterborne diseases

Water security is essential for good public health, not just to lubricate the economic engine. The perennial outbreak of cholera and typhoid in the country is something that a water-secure country would not need to worry so much about as the citizens will have clean water for cooking, drinking, and,  most importantly, regularly handwashing. The Covid-19 pandemic showed us how important washing hands was to stop its spread. The act cannot be over-emphasised in the prevention of many waterborne diseases common in Africa.

The ‘Big Four Agenda’ is an amazing concept to make the country secure through better health, water and food security and provision of housing. All these pillars require water to realise but little effort goes into water security. The foundation for better health of individuals and the nation is water; without it, we will keep burying innocent lives, such as those of Mukumu.

Politicians must deliver to save lives.

Ms Guyo is a legal researcher. [email protected]. @kdiguyo