Badi team sets aside Sh150m for new city cemetery land

The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) has begun plans to purchase new cemetery land to relieve pressure from the already full Lang’ata Cemetery.

The Mohammed Badi-led administration has set aside a budget of Sh150 million in the current financial year towards the project.

The new development, contained in a report by NMS presented to the National Assembly’s Health Committee, will also see the purchase, installation and commissioning of a crematorium at Lang’ata Cemetery. Nairobi has three crematoriums including Lang’ata, Hindu and Kariokor.

“A request to the land directorate to begin the process of acquiring the land and a discussion with the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has been initiated. A base budget of Sh150 million has been budgeted for this financial year for the acquisition of the land,” said the NMS.

The next step is for the Directorate of Land and the KFS to identify the specific land in Mugumoini Ward that will be dedicated for the cemetery.

The 100-acre Lang’ata Cemetery has been full for the last 20 year, but several attempts by the county to get an alternative have not borne fruit, either hitting a dead end or being mired in controversy.

In the 2018/19 financial year, City Hall set aside Sh200 million for the acquisition of an extra 200 acres of land to serve as a public cemetery, but nothing came out of the plan.

This has forced families to bury their loved ones in shallow graves, thus failing to meet the recommended six feet depth.

Lang’ata Cemetery has permanent and temporary graveyards with most poor city residents choosing to bury their family members in a temporary grave, which get flattened every five years to make room for more bodies. Permanent graves for adults at the cemetery cost Sh30,000, Sh4,000 for children and Sh2,000 for infants with non-residents having to pay Sh40,000.

In 2017, an attempt by the county to use 67 acres of forest land near the Langa’ata cemetery as a graveyard flopped after KFS rejected the request to swap the filled-up cemetery with the forest. In the financial year ending June 30, 2017, City Hall set aside Sh221 million for the purchase of a 120-acre parcel of land for burial in Kitengela, Kajiado but the plans also failed.