Health CS Mutahi Kagwe has said cited the lack of discipline as a major problem that has led to traffic backlog at the Kenya-Uganda border at Malaba. This even as Busia recorded 26 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the County’s total past 100 and third in the number of cases countrywide. All new cases are once again truck drivers, 18 at the Malaba border post, 4 at the Busia border and 4 at the Alupe mandatory quarantine centre.
CS Kagwe said some drivers go to the border points without the Covid-19 negative certificates, expecting to be tested at the borders, yet the directive issued states that one must be tested 48 hours before departure from points of origin. “This is indiscipline which is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” he said, urging law enforcement officers to take action against such drivers.
He said in some cases, drivers who already have clearance certificates are used to enter the ports where they get goods and once outside, they hand over the vehicle and goods back to drivers who have no Covid-19 clearance certificates, who in turn head towards Busia. He questioned the role police officers play in allowing drivers who haven’t been tested to reach the border, “What can the cops on the roads tell us about that? Going forward we need to start checking what time they passed and which officers were on duty,” he said.
As a result, some truck drivers reach the border points with their certificates but are kept waiting, sometimes by drivers who weren’t initially tested already, “Officers may come and urge a driver to proceed, but he asks how he can proceed yet vehicles are still parked infront of him.” Busia County is feeling the strain with an increasing number of patients being referred to Alupe quarantine facility.