ByALLY JAMAH
The Parliamentary health committee probing the alleged multi-million scandal at the National Health Insurance Fund dropped its biggest hint yet of its plans to call for Parliament to pass a vote of censure against Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o.
This comes as the caretaker Board that took over the running of Nhif revealed yesterday that no further payments will be made to the two private health service providers running the outpatient medical scheme for civil servants.
So far, the providers, Clinix Healthcare Ltd and Meridian Medical Centers, have received nearly Sh320 million for services provided for the first three months of this year.
In a three and half our sittings yesterday, the Health Committee led by Nyaribari Chache MP Dr. Robert Monda, accused Nyong’o of “running away from taking responsibility” in the scandal that has engulfed the Nhif’s medical scheme for civil servants worth billions of shillings.
“From your responses, you are clearly running away from responsibility by pushing blame to the management of Nhif. We have seen heads rolling recently over the irregularities at Nhif. And maybe more will be rolling soon.” Monda ominously told Nyong’o yesterday
He added: “Your Ministry has invited the Efficiency Monitoring Unit and other government bodies to investigate the matter. This has been a public gimmick from the government to calm public concerns.”
The committee leveled a similar charge of “running away from responsibility” to Public Service Minister Dalmas Otieno, but it is not yet clear if the MPs of the committee will also recommend his censure in Parliament.
But Nyong’o rejected carrying the cross for the scandal saying he was not directly responsible for the alleged irregularities in the scheme including the claims of payments of millions of shillings to “ghost” health outlets.
“Nhif makes independent decisions through its Board and management. The participation of the Ministry in Nhif matters is limited to guidance and general direction of the board,” he said
Pressure has been piling on Nyong’o to step aside until he is cleared by ongoing probe into an alleged scandal that may have resulted in losses worth hundreds of millions of shillings.
He admitted that he heard of cases of “ghost clinics” after the programme had been rolled out in January this year and claimed to have written a letter to Nhif Board and CEO to iron out the matters to avoid ruing the medical scheme for civil servants.
Nyong’o also strenuously defended his earlier decision to reinstate the former Nhif CEO Richard Kerich after he was sacked by the Nhif Board Chair Richard Muga as well as his reinstatement of the Board after it was suspended by head of Public Service Francis Kimemia.
“We wanted the claims against Nhif investigated properly and action taken instead of doing things haphazardly. I was not defending people who may have been involved in corruption,” he said.
Earlier Public Service Minister Dalmas Otieno faced accusations of negligence in monitoring the implementation of the medical scheme and allowing civil servants to get a raw deal like non-existent clinics and poor services.
The Minister had blamed Nhif for being fully responsible for choice of health providers and making payments to them.
Acting Nhif Board Adan Adan said payments to Clinix and Meridian will be suspended for the next two weeks until a probe is done adding that the two service providers have agreed to continue offering attention to civil servants.
“We want to sort out the matter very quickly and if we find that no wrong doing on the part of Clinix and meridians, we will release their second tranche of payments,” he said.
