Kenya’s healthcare transition has descended into institutional chaos following revelations that the Social Health Authority (SHA) diverted millions of shillings meant for public hospitals to incorrect facilities. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale faced a hostile reception from the Council of Governors (CoG) on Friday, as county chiefs demanded accountability for what they termed a catastrophic failure of the new health insurance architecture.
The crisis erupted after it emerged that critical funds intended to settle arrears and cover operational costs in public health facilities were mistakenly wired to private clinics and unrelated entities. This administrative nightmare has left many public dispensaries and referral hospitals unable to purchase essential medicine or pay casual staff, effectively paralyzing the grassroots health network.
Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki, who chairs the CoG Health Committee, spearheaded the onslaught against Duale. The governors expressed fury over the “reckless” distribution of public funds, questioning how a supposedly sophisticated digitized system could fail so fundamentally at its core mandate. The CoG warned that if the trend persists, the transition from the defunct NHIF to SHA will be remembered as a systemic sabotage against the Kenyan patient.
Duale, cornered by the mounting evidence of financial mismanagement, attributed the mess to “technical teething problems” and data migration errors. However, his explanation did little to quell the rising tension. The CS has now been forced to commit to a rigorous manual audit of all recent transactions to recover the misdirected funds.
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