Spitting, blowing nose in streets will soon land you in jail

Spitting or blowing your nose in the streets of Kisumu can now land you behind bars if a motion passed by the County Assembly is endorsed by the Executive.

Area MCAs have passed a motion declaring such a habit a ‘disgusting’ and which has no place for the clean city streets.

They said that a number of people have been making the town filthy and littering the town’s beautiful pavements with ugly and nauseating contents from their noses.

The motion will now be taken to the Health Committee which will follow it up with the Executive. It will later end up with the implementation committee before it becomes a by-law.

The MCAs said, the move possesses not only a health hazard but also risked scaring away investors.

This means that "flobbing" or "gobbing" as it's colloquially known along the streets of Kisumu is now likely to earn you a date with the town’s municipal askaris.

Judith Ogaga, Central Kisumu Ward MCA the brainchild of the motion seeking to have agencies crackdown on the “vice” said that several people have become a nuisance with the habit.

She noted that several people in the lakeside town now risked attracting a number of diseases as a result of the inability of some people to maintain hygiene in the town and in market centers.

“Spitting is a nuisance and harmful to the general public due to the fact that it is a source of airborne diseases such as tuberculosis which spreads through spitting,” said Ogaga.

The ward rep said that the county government had the powers to stop the habit before it gets out of hand.

A number of ward representatives who supported the motion said that a ban on the habit was likely to improve the cleanliness of the town.

Carren Muga, a member of the speaker’s panel said that the motion was in order.

“There is need to make the town clean to help also curb the spread of diseases,” she said.

Nominated MCA, Aslam Khan said that people’s spit has become an eyesore and a health hazard.

“People are spitting where they are not supposed to spit and are also blowing their noses in open places and that is unacceptable,” said Khan.

The MCAs called on the department of health, the city inspectorate and the city management to curb spitting within the city centers within the county.

But residents have dismissed the MCAs of being “petty” and lacking serious issues to discuss.

Joseph Onyango, a resident said that it was wrong for the MCAs to spend a whole afternoon discussing about spitting in public which is not “a serious course for concern”

“We need legislation that can promote development but not on things that are not of interest. It is disgusting.”

He added: “Roads are bad, our hospitals do not have medicine and we need better legislation but our MCAs are discussing about people blowing their noses."