Many disputes arise from funeral contributions happening online in Kenya.

📋 Breaking It Down

A young man was buried in Homa Bay County on October 6, after dying in Nairobi in September. The sombre burial slammed shut the chapter of a rising star.

As his family pursues closure, it is experiencing pain from at least two fronts. One, their son died suddenly in his prime.

The mother said she had never met the man who ran the group and collected contributions until the day she went to collect her son’s body in Nairobi.

📌 What You Need to Know

When her son died, the man rode in the vehicle the family had hired to take the body to Homa Bay. He went with them to the mortuary and back home, where the family fed him and arranged for him to spend the night at a neighbour’s house. By morning, he was gone.

“I was his host, then he disappeared on me. That is when I started thinking, ‘What kind of friendship is this?’” she said.

As the burial drew near, she told members of the group that the central burial committee had set up an M-Pesa Pay Bill number to receive all contributions to coordinate the budget.

“I called him to tell him we were holding the final fundraiser: ‘Please deposit what you have in the Pay Bill so that we can complete the funeral.’ It was all excuses. He’d say he’d send, then say he’d deposit in the Pay Bill, and all that,” she recalled.

On the burial day, she says, the man was there, taking photos of the coffin and the mourners and posting updates online, “yet not a cent from him had been contributed to the event”.

The brewing controversy is an example of the ever-rising disputes arising from funeral contributions happening online in Kenya. While the present case hasn’t been conclusively labelled as fraud, some have taken that path.

📰 Source: Nation Africa