Six Members of Parliament from Busia county want Inspector General of police Hillary Mutyambai to initiate investigations into how truck drivers who have not been tested for the Coronavirus are managing to reach Busia county without being intercepted along the way.
The MPs Raphael Wanjala of Budalang’i, Oundo Mudenyo of Samia, Joseph Oyula of Butula, John Bunyasi (Nambale), Geoffrey Odanga (Matayos) and Oku Kaunya of Teso North have wondered how the drivers manage to pass numerous roadblocks all the way from Mombasa to Busia county only to test positive for Covid-19, “There must be something fishy going on between the truck drivers and the police manning the roadblocks on our roads.”
Speaking in Nairobi where they went to express their displeasure with the manner in which the government is handling trucks in the county, the legislators said this has led to trucks piling up at the Busia and Malaba borders as cases of truck drivers testing positive for Coronavirus continue to rise. They also urged the Ministry of Health to ensure that all the truck drivers are tested and their certificates released on time to decongest the two towns, “Truck drivers are being kept in the towns for more than one week thus endangering the lives of our people who live in those towns.”
At least three hundred cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Busia county with all of them being truck drivers. Last week Busia county Governor Sospeter Ojaamong revealed that of all truck drivers who tested positive, only two were residents of Busia county while the rest were from other counties and the neighboring countries of Uganda and DR Congo.