NAIROBI: Transitional Authority (TA) chairperson Kinuthia Mwangi has accused those seeking to have healthcare reverted to national government as unreasonable.
"We have not given counties a full period of transition to enable the parties receiving the functions to be able to build capacity," said Mwangi.
Mwangi explained that no single function devolved should be reverted back to national government before three years of transition have elapsed.
He observed that the national government should support the counties to build the capacity of devolved units to fully handle and be able to perform well.
"If it's found that in health, there is a deficiency in capacity to carrying out health functions, it's upon the national government according to the constitution to build capacity of county government until they are able to carry out that function," said Mwangi when he paid a courtesy call to Kakamega governor Wycliffe Oparanya Tuesday.
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"Has the national government carried out capacity building of national government? The answer is not to revert the functions but to support counties with adequate resources, giving equipment and supporting them with funds to run the hospitals."
He claimed that there's a lot of conspiracy by health workers that health sector has deteriorated under county government because they have refused in their minds to transit to devolution.
"We have evaluated level 5 hospitals in the counties and we have seen major gains done by the counties. There's massive refurbishing of infrastructure, improved equipping of hospitals and we should encourage devolution of health, "said Mwangi.
Governor Oparanya explained that functions devolved can only be reverted if county government declare that it's unable to effectively carry out the said functions.
"Healthcare has improved tremendously since county government took over. Here in Kakamega we allocate over 25 per cent of our budget to health. We have beefed up personnel, increase purchase of drugs and improved access to quality health care," said Oparanya.
He criticized those advocating for return of healthcare to national government of setting up a bad precedent that is aimed at killing devolution.
"The constitution must be followed to the later. Otherwise it will be free for all if we leave it at legislation to be deciding on what will be transferred and what should not be transferred," said Oparanya.
