NEW YORK | NAIROBI (IDN | GIN) – Dizzying amounts of taxpayers’ money are alleged to have gone missing from Kenya’s Ministry of Health including 800 million shillings (close to US$8 million) designated for free maternity care for poor mothers to be.
The scandal has stunned even the most jaded media pundits who have seen the theft of public monies throughout their careers.
“This is official corruption at its most cruel and unbelievable,” wrote Otieno Otieno of Kenya’s Daily Nation. “You know Kenya has gone to the dogs when they steal from Kenyatta National Hospital, the country’s largest referral health facility mostly in the news for its stone-age problems like the single broken down cancer machine.”
Top officials in Kenya’s Ministry of Health have been asked to explain the loss of 5 billion Kenyan shillings (US$50 million). Dr Mailu said the ministry is still studying the internal audit report.
News of the missing funds comes two days after the Ministry of Health was ordered to refund at least 160 million shillings (US$1.6 million) in donor money that cannot be accounted for after an audit by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations {GAVI), revealed misuse of these funds, meant to provide 730,000 doses of vaccines for children.
The theft has put the lives of new-born babies at risk, with reports indicating some public facilities across the country are without the vital supplies.
Among the questionable transactions in the audit report was the earmarked payment of US$8.89 million for the purchase of mobile medical clinics for urban slums.
One hundred shipping containers bought from China, converted to clinics, sit fully equipped in a lot in Mombasa where they have been gathering dust from between five months and a year.
Julius Ogogoh, head of Human Rights and Justice, a Mombasa-based group, asked why the containers had been left at the yard for so long.
“Something is fishy here,” he said. “People must come out and talk. We cannot keep mum while the government faces one scandal after another. When will we progress as a nation?”
Meanwhile, attorney-general Githu Muigai expressed concern that Kenya is facing an inordinate amount of white-collar crime, a situation he called “untenable”.
As of October, 873 people in East Africa’s biggest economy were facing corruption charges in court. These include five former ministers, six principal secretaries, two senators, nine lawmakers, 16 senior county officials and 17 chief executive officers of state-owned companies, director of public prosecutions Keriako Tobiko said. [IDN-InDepthNews – 01 November 2016]
Photo: Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu (left) wi th his PS Nicholas Muraguri during the press conference at Afya House on October 30, 2016. Credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Geoup
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