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Kenya Tobacco Control and Health Promotion Alliance (KTCHPA) Chairman Joel Gitali has called on the government to increase the budget allocation for the control of Tobacco and Nicotine products.
Gitali stated that the Tobacco Control Board needs support from the government in terms budgetary allocation that will enable them fight drug abuse and the usage of Tobacco and Nicotine products.
According to the Chairman, for Universal Health coverage to be achieved the government needs to ensure the board is well funded and invest in the health sector at large.
“The Tobacco Control Board needs enough support from the government. The budget allocated for them is not enough to help fight drug abuse and the usage of Tobacco and Nicotine products,” Gitali stated.
“We are speaking of Universal Health Coverage but our acts do not show that we really want to achieve it. The government needs to invest a lot in the health sector especially in fight of drug abuse,” he added.
Further on, Gitali has condemned the legalization of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as a way of ensuring food security.
He stated that everyone does not have believe in the GMOs and the experts and resources that are present in he country have not been fully utilized for the government to legalize GMOs.
“We can not achieve food security by legalizing GMOs. We have not fully utilized the experts and mechanisms that we have that can make us now want to use such that everyone does not have faith in,” he added.
“The move is very wrong and we will not be able to predict the effects that will come with the legalization,” he added.