Chiefs and their assistants in Kitui County have been warned against covering up schoolgirl pregnancies.

County Commissioner Samuel Kimiti said it was disturbing that some local administrators were colluding with teachers, parents and the men who made girls pregnant to conceal the crime.

He said the county had one of the highest pregnancy prevalence rates at 14 per cent. He noted that 8,600 girls aged between 13 and 19 years got pregnant last year.

“We have given directives to chiefs and their assistants to thoroughly monitor and give records of adolescent pregnancies in their areas of jurisdiction,” said Mr Kimiti.

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He was speaking at a Kitui hotel during a stakeholders’ workshop organised by the United States Agency for International Development’s Afya Halisi Project, the County Ministry of Health and the National Youth Council (NYC).

NYC chairman Aggrey Nzomo said the workshop was to deliberate on the worrying trend of teenage pregnancies in the county and seek a solution.