Wamuzi News Ke
Lawmakers have uncovered a financial bombshell – a Sh833.63 million debt is holding hostage a fully completed 150-bed police hospital in Mbagathi, Nairobi. Despite being ready for use for over two years, the facility—built under the watch of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF)—remains ghostly silent, unused, and off-limits to the very officers it was meant to serve.
And now, in a drastic move to tackle the outstanding debt, Parliament has slashed the police insurance budget by a staggering Sh883 million.
The National Assembly’s Administration and Internal Affairs Committee, led by Narok West MP Gabriel Tongoyo, dropped the hammer during a tense session with Inspector General Douglas Kanja and NPS Secretary of Administration Bernice Lemedeket.
“You have Sh12 billion sitting in insurance, yet this hospital lies idle because of an unpaid bill,” Tongoyo said, his tone sharp with frustration. “Clear the debt with that money.
The hospital is turning into a white elephant!”Wasted Billions?The shocking detail comes just as APA Insurance and its partners secured a jaw-dropping Sh8.7 billion contract to cover police medical insurance from April 2025 to March 2026.
Yet, MPs are baffled—why pour billions into insurance when a state-of-the-art police hospital is literally gathering dust?“Where’s the logic?” posed Saku MP Dido Rasso, the committee’s vice-chair.
“We’re spending billions on insurance that doesn’t even benefit the officers—and the one facility that could cut these costs is being ignored.”
The committee tore into what they called “bloated and ineffective insurance spending,” especially as the NPS has reportedly been reluctant to honor claims for injured officers and bereaved families.
The MPs questioned why medical personnel had already been budgeted for at the hospital—Sh200 million for the next fiscal year—even though the building remains unopened and its ownership is in limbo.
Audit Unmasks the ProblemThe issue first came to light in the 2023/24 audit by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, who flagged the unpaid Sh833.63 million as a critical bottleneck in the hospital’s handover.
The project, finalized in the 2022/23 financial year, was designed to elevate the medical care of police officers across Kenya. Lemedeket admitted the funds were earmarked for staff at the facility, prompting fresh outrage from lawmakers. “We need transparency,” Rasso emphasized.
“How was the contract awarded? Who’s holding this hospital hostage?”Billions at Stake, Lives on the LineMPs say settling the debt and operationalizing the hospital could slash healthcare costs drastically by avoiding expensive private facilities. I
t’s a decision they say could save lives—and billions of shillings.As the pressure mounts, Kenyans are left wondering: How did a completed hospital meant to serve the nation’s law enforcers become a symbol of bureaucratic failure?The heat is on. The answers must come.
