Rabai Member of Parliament Kenga Mupe has announced the suspension of free hearse and hospital transportation services in his constituency. This, he said, was due to the assertion that the services were promoting death in the area.
Speaking at an event on Sunday, the MP stated that starting January 2025, the services will be withdrawn for six months to gauge the residents’ reactions before he decides whether to reintroduce them or scrap them completely.
“Starting January 1, all the hospital transportation services I had provided for the sick and the deceased will be suspended for six months until I can figure out a way forward,” the MP stated.
Meanwhile, the deputy county commissioner, Joseph Lengarie, also present, sent a stern warning to chiefs who entertained disco matanga events at funerals in their administration areas.
Rabai Member of Parliament Kenga Mupe speaking to journalists during a previous event.
“If you are a chief whose area is still hosting Disco Matangas, I will start writing you up in January and if that reaches the ministry in Nairobi, I am sending you home,” he told the congregation.
He termed the events as breeding grounds for teenage pregnancies, alcohol and substance abuse, and even gender-based violence.
During his tenure as the Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’i made the controversial ban on disco matanga in Kilifi attracting both criticism and praise in equal measure.
The late MP William Kamoti, who was the then Rabai MP, opposed the ban citing that it intervened with the region’s cultural practices.
“What measures has the ministry put in place to ensure security is provided during cultural celebrations to enable communities to give their departed kin deserving send-off in line with their cultural and traditional practices?” Kamoti inquired when the former CS appeared in Parliament following the ban in 2019.
“Every community has a way of celebrating their dead. In Kilifi and particularly Rabai, dead people are celebrated in overnight events.”
However, Matiang’i was adamant in his decision stating that the event was no longer cultural as criminals had infiltrated them to commit their crimes.
In 2022, Aisha Jumwa, the then Public Service CS and a resident of the county lifted the ban and urged parents to bear the responsibility of knowing their children’s whereabouts and for law enforcement to take action on parents of children found in such settings.
“As a parent, you should always know where your child is. When the child leaves home for these functions, where is the parent? Do not abscond your duties and allow your child to roam around then you blame disco matanga. The solution is to arrest a few parents and charge them,” she stated.
The decision also garnered an equal measure of criticism and has since seen chiefs and commissioners intervening to ensure the cultural event is done away with in its entirety.
Former Interior CS Fred Matiang’i during a past interview.
Photo
Fred Matiang’i