New Kakamega oxygen plant still at port two weeks later

Two weeks after Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya announced that a new medical oxygen plant the county imported from France last month had been released, investigations by the Nation confirm that it is still stuck at the Mombasa port.

Speaking to Nation in a phone interview, Kakamega County General Hospital (KCGH) administrator Titus Mumia explained on Monday that the standoff between the importer and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) over payment of clearance fees was causing the delay.

The customs and clearance office demanded Sh8 million in taxes before releasing the machine.

“The importer told us that KRA said they would release it and had given him three months to offset the fees but they have not released it,” Mr Mumia said.

County officials declined to speak on the matter.

Bernard Karoro of Total Hospital Solutions, which imported the machine on behalf of the county, said it will be released in one week.

“I’m bound to pay taxes like any other Kenyan and I will pay. The issue has been all about insurance because I need a surety. The rest are contractual issues between myself and the county government which I do not wish to discuss, but the insurance issues I will sort out between today and Wednesday,” Mr Karoro told the Nation yesterday.

“The governor is not being honest. He was asked to explain a few things about his supplier for accountability purposes. He is yet to do so,” a KRA source in Mombasa told the Nation.

Delayed clearance 

“It is a shame that at this time of the Covid-19 pandemic we are being taxed on machines that are meant to save many lives,” Mr Oparanya had said a fortnight ago.

In an official response to the Nation at the time, KRA explained that waiving taxes in such instances as per the Finance Act was not their jurisdiction and the agency officially got in touch with the governor advising him to take up the matter with the Treasury. 

“Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is aware that a supplier contracted by the Kakamega County government to import a critical equipment for use in the production of oxygen has delayed clearance of the same from the port of Mombasa due to an inability to raise funds for taxes and other related charges amounting to Sh8 million,” the agency said.

During the pandemic, KRA has “always facilitated clearance of such critical equipment and other health-related products meant for the support of the health sector”.

In this case, KRA said, it had spoken with Mr Oparanya and the importer and guided them on what to do to speed up the clearing of the equipment.

Nurses at the hospital now want to know why the governor publicly announced that the issues surrounding the equipment had been resolved when the situation had not changed.

“This is an issue affecting the lives of many people. Why would anyone play political games with this issue when people are dying for lack of oxygen?” asked a nurse.

“When we are actually sending people away who genuinely come here for treatment because we do not have medical oxygen?”

A patient who had been asked by the hospital to go look for oxygen elsewhere told the Nation that he was heartbroken.

“With lockdowns and curfews, I do not know where to start. I do not have any money, let alone not knowing where to find it,” the patient said.

Oxygen shortage 

The governor earlier acknowledged that the county was facing serious shortages, terming the new plant as a solution.

The existing oxygen plant, the main supplier to the facility, has been outstripped by the demand, the governor said at a press briefing. The hospital, he said, could no longer admit critical Covid-19 patients demanding high oxygen flow due to the acute oxygen shortage.

Statistics show that the 13 counties in the Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB) continue to record higher Covid-19 positivity rates than the national one.

“It is because of this … that all governors in the region held a meeting and resolved to share medical resources, especially oxygen facilities, in bid to save lives and as a result Kakamega has been bearing the burden of providing medical care for Covid-19 patients from neighbouring counties who flood our medical facilities,” Mr Oparanya said.

The situation has also deteriorated not only because the hospital is full but also because it prioritises the quality of oxygen as the most important thing, not quantity.

“We cannot close down our hospital to handle Covid-19 patients alone because we also have other normal patients who need to be attended to. If a Covid patient can consume 60 litres of oxygen per minute alone, what about the other non-Covid patients?” the hospital’s chief administrator, Dr Titus Mumia said, explaining why they were sending Covid-19 patients away.

The administrator acknowledged that the facility was yet to get new Covid-19 kits, which explains why Kakamega has been registering low or no infections in daily Covid-19 briefings by the Ministry of Health.

“Let me go and check how many kits we have because I’m not sure. I will follow up and let you know later,” he told the Nation.

“The truth is that we have not been testing people for Covid-19 around here. In our store we have like five kits left, which are already expired so when people see only one case or two or none being reported, they imagine that they are safer, which is not true,” a Covid-19 response nurse at the hospital disclosed.

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