Nakuru county government is awaiting clearance from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) to relocate the public cemetery to a new piece of land, health executive has said.
Speaking at his office Wednesday afternoon, County health executive Daniel Mungai said that they have already identified three separate pieces of land, and what they are waiting for is the clearance from NEMA before they can decide where the new cemetery will be located.
He said the process was being hastened because the existing cemeteries are full beyond capacity.
“The North and South cemeteries are all full and people can hardly find space to bury their loved ones and we have had incidences whereby bodies are being buried on top of other graves,” said Mungai.
“We have already identified three pieces of lands in Naivasha, Njoro and one here at Nakuru and we are just waiting for NEMA to tell us which land is viable before we can relocate the cemeteries and we hope the process will be through in the next 25 days,” said Mungai.
Mungai added that the pieces of land they have identified are bigger enough to last for a couple of years.
He called on residents to embrace other methods of resting their loved ones other than burying them in graves.
“One day we will have no land to buy and I wonder where we will bury our loved ones when they die if we don’t consider other means like cremation,” he said.
County residents had raise concern over the complete lack of space at the two cemeteries, and have been calling on the county government to speed up the process of acquiring new land for the new cemetery.