Kenyans are dumping the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) for alternative medical insurance providers as cases of fraud become the order of the day at the national insurer.
Someone please direct me to a reliable alternative to the fraud @nhifkenya. Been paying 1700 since 016 and no hospital will accept my card ati because I am not a civil servant! ??? NHIF, Isn’t this what they call racial discrimination? ?
— Kobia Mutiga (@kobiamutiga5) February 6, 2020
The situation welcomes a looming cash-crisis at the already deeply-looted national insurer that has been rocked with myriad scandals in the recent past.
There are reports that the National Intelligence Service has sent a dossier on the NHIF Chairlady Hannah Mureithi to accountability institutions over a Ksh. 500 Million scandal that has shocked everyone. We exposed the scandal last year.
The scandal, as exposed, involved Hannah Mureithi and cartel law firm MMC Africa which has perfected the art of swindling parastatals and private sector companies like Safaricom.
In December, Treasury CS Ukur Yattani directed NHIF to adhere to provisions of Section 19 of Insurance Act. The provision provides that only persons registered under the Act have authority to carry out insurance business in Kenya.
In this case, NHIF as currently constituted does not have the mandate the carry on insurance business. According to Yattani, NHIF should stick to its core mandate of collecting contributions from members in formal, informal, and social insurance schemes.
Therefore, NHIF risks losing police, civil servants and parastatal employees unless it abides by the provisions of section 19. There is a possibility of locking out 133,000 civil servants after the expiry of health cover in June this year.
NHIF collects Ksh5 billion premiums from police medical insurance and a similar amount from civil servants. Moreover, the insurer gets Ksh1.9 billion annually from 40 parastatals and 15 state-controlled firms.
Already, the Interior Ministry is searching for a private insurer to cover 131,151 police and prison officers.
