Government clears Mukami Kimathi's Sh1.3 million hospital bill

DP Rigathi Gachagua at Nairobi Hospital when he visited Dedan Kimathi's ailing Mukami Kimathi (right) on January 14, 2023. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The government on Sunday cleared Sh1.3 million hospital bill incurred by Mukami Kimathi, widow of freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi.

Ms Kimathi who was admitted to Nairobi Hospital on January 5, 2023, suffering from pneumonia and age-related complications had been discharged but was detained due to the bill.

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who was accompanied by some MPs from Mt Kenya, visited the freedom fighter's widow in the hospital where he said her detention was a shame and humiliation to a national heroine.

"We have cleared the bill and wish her complete recovery. We were not aware of her predicament as me and the president have been on a western Kenya tour and this was only brought to our attention yesterday," Gachagua said at the hospital.

The DP revealed that the Kimathi family had requested help to recover his remains to accord him a decent burial.

He also lashed at the post-independence government saying they had betrayed the Mau Mau veterans by hatching a scheme that saw land formerly under the white settlers appropriated by colonial collaborators.

"We are urging those who unfairly benefited from land tracts of currently idle land where only gazelles and antelope roam to give up some of it - even if just half," Gachagua said. "This cannot continue to be the situation when descendants of the Mau Mau remain landless, burying their loved ones in public cemeteries and living a life of squalor and anguish."

The DP said negotiations are ongoing on the case of Mau Mau veterans and their descendants and would soon come to a fruitful conclusion.

"Like with the freedom fighters' modus operandi, the planning and execution of this plan will be discreet until the last minute," said the DP.