Hi Nyakundi,
In 2015, the representative of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), which is a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) both under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) asked me to find out if the Ministry of Health (MoH) would be interested in modularized 40ft polyclinic containers fully kitted with medical equipment.
At that point the Mr. Muraguri was the Director of Medical Services. We made basic presentation and requested for a broader presentation with the representative who lives in South Africa. He came and we had another meeting with Mr. Muraguri who was very interested in receiving the donations.
These donations were being sent through my company to MoH because after receiving them, there was implementation and maintenance that we were to carry our to keep these containers in good shape. We presented the MoH with an memorandum of understanding (MoU). The containers, since the DMS had agreed to receive them, were dispatched from China and arrived in Kenya in Feb 2016. Later on, the MoU was presented to MoH and they signed the MoU in June 2016, during this time, the storage charges were negligible and the owners of the storage facility MICDL had even agreed to waiver some of the charges.
In August 2016, the Chinese Government sent doctors to come and do the basic training on the operations of the equipment, we sent out a letter and their credentials to MoH so that they could be given temporary practising license and work permits. Since the equipment were still at the port, MoH declined to make approvals for this request.
We have spent numerous time appealing and visiting MoH to clear these containers but they’ve always stuck to their guns saying that they don’t have budget for clearing them. The market value for a single container as these is Kshs 12 million.
The most painful part is that these containers will be eventually be auctioned while many Kenyans are dying for diseases that could have been prevented had it these containers were to be taken to their areas to offer primary health care.
