Kenya’s Health Minister, Aden Duale, has been found guilty of contempt of court for allowing the continued construction of a controversial United States-funded Ebola quarantine facility despite a court order halting the project.
The ruling was delivered on Monday by the High Court, which held that Duale failed to comply with an earlier directive suspending work on the 50-bed isolation centre being built at a military base in Nanyuki, about 140 kilometres north of Nairobi. He is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday.
The facility is intended to accommodate US citizens suspected of contracting Ebola during the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The project has sparked widespread opposition in Nanyuki, leading to protests that have reportedly claimed three lives following clashes between demonstrators and security personnel. Among those killed was 17-year-old Sylvester Muigai Ndung’u, who witnesses alleged was shot during the unrest.
The legal challenge against the project was filed in May by the Katiba Institute, a rights group that argued the facility posed significant public health risks and sought an order stopping construction pending the determination of the case.
Although the Ministry of Health maintained that any ongoing construction after the court order was being undertaken solely by the Kenyan government as part of national Ebola preparedness efforts, Justice Patricia Nyaundi rejected the argument.
According to the judge, the government could not evade compliance by reclassifying or recharacterising the project, stressing that court orders must be obeyed without exception.
The controversy has also drawn criticism from the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, which questioned why Kenya was selected to host a quarantine facility for American citizens potentially exposed to Ebola.
Kenyan President William Ruto has defended the project, saying the request came from the United States and that rejecting it would have been inhumane. He also urged citizens not to politicise the Ebola response.
The United States has pledged $13.5 million in support of Kenya’s Ebola preparedness programme as part of a broader $112 million regional response initiative aimed at combating the outbreak in Central Africa.
While Kenya has not recorded any Ebola cases, neighbouring countries including Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda continue to battle the outbreak, with the Democratic Republic of Congo recording more than 1,000 confirmed cases and Uganda reporting 20 confirmed infections.
