The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) has announced sweeping changes to its cover terms.
The national health insurer says the changes are informed by the need to align NHIF towards the attainment of universal health coverage (UHC) which is a big fat white lie.
NHIF is continuing the policy of looting made stronger by the incompetent Board chair Hannah Muriithi.
Let no one lie to you, NHIF is a scam that has existed for far too long. In December 2018, CEO Geoffrey Mwangi was fired and later quickly replaced by an acting capacity CEO Nicodemus Odongo.
Nicodemus Odongo has acted as a puncjing bag for the ills committed by Board Chair Hannah Muriithi. Whenever the media has a question of integrity against NHIF, Ms. Muriithi who is married to the brother of powerful PS Karanja Kibicho often dismisses them, ‘call the CEO’, yet the truth be told the CEO is only there to be seen.
The Kikuyu mafia had seen the suspended CEO Mwangi as an obstacle in their Looting schemes because Mwangi wa sharing the loot with the man from Sugoi.
It was a relief for them when they hounded him out of office and quickly replaced him with a Luo for showbiz.
Members of National Assembly Health Committee have fingered NHIF for fleecing the poor to benefit the rich.
The National Assembly Health Committee found out that NHIF has unofficial contracts with hospitals abroad, who in turn bloat the costs of treatment and the loot is shared by the board.
When he appeared before MPs in 2019, Nicodemus tabled documents that showed Private entities were making a killing from NHIF contributions.
The documents revealed that government and mission hospitals, which are generally accessed by a majority of Kenyans of low income, were receiving less than half of what private hospitals get annually.
For instance, in the 2018/2019 financial year, private hospitals received Sh22 billion from the insurer while government and mission received Sh7 billion and Sh8 billion respectively out of its Sh37.7 billion expenditure.
In the same period, NHIF spent 17.7 billion for specialised treatment which included flying some patients abroad for medical attention. The figure was higher than what it spent on inpatient and outpatient treatments that stood at Sh11.8 billion and Sh8 billion respectively.
Thanks to the question that was asked by one of the MPs.
ALSO READ: NHIF And Kenya Red Cross Ambulance Scandal – Part 10 of 20
NHIF was required to provide a list of all patients it has sponsored for treatment abroad and a breakdown of claims by private hospitals. It is not clear if they honored this or they bribed the MPs.
The new directive by NHIF that one must only have up to 5 kids is myopic and china-like.
Kenyatta has most often been told to quit some of his agenda because they seem to emanate from elitist people.
Take for example that most Kenyans public hospitals are not well stocked in terms of machinery.
Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki in April 2018 unveiled the new NHIF Board Chairperson Ms Hannah Muriithi (left) and Mudzo Nzili (Vice Chairperson)
Looting Ksh0.5 Billion
As soon Hannah Muriithi was appointed she received a Ksh40 Million Bribe to push for a law firm she has ties to to be given a contract to review contracts with hospitals.
The law firm, MMC Africa was single-sourced. For such an amount of close to 1/2 a billion, it should have been an open tender advertised in the newspaper…it was not. The chair instructed management to add a few law firms to be pre-qualified in the pre-qualified list that already existed without following due process of going to the newspaper. the law firms added backdoor tendered and MMC got the job. The board thus instructed management to instruct MMC Africa to draft contracts between NHIF and Hospitals.
To escape future audits, our source told us that the Minutes for this board meeting were not fully signed.
TIME ENGAGEMENT (how MMC arrived at the 1/2 a billion cost)
MMC presented tho NHIF board that where a charge is so based inline of charges per item of work done per 15 minutes.
The advocates presented to management that it would take them 10 hours to formulate each contract (never mind its a recurring contract template)
Thus: 7000 shillings quoted x 10 hours x 15 minutes = 280,000 Kes per contract.
280,000 x 6700 which gave 1,87 billion. NHIF was given a rebate of 1.5 billion…
Total fees was 373,103,442
VAT 59,698,000
Disbursement, printing, stamp duty = 43,260,000
Totalling to close to 500,000,000 Kenyan money
The board stated in the meeting that the amount was payable to the strict number of contracts to be signed between NHIF and MMC. The minutes were not fully signed.
The BOM stated that the service level agreement made was to be for 3 years but 2 years was signed. Service agreement did not state any amount as passed by the board.
Since the service level agreement was signed in 24/0/2018 and on 9.07.18, MMC Africa was paid 147,000,000, then 151,556,000 on 16.8.18 then 37,771,000 on 15.10.2018 then 111,000 them 293,000 totaling to 336,632,462 as at march this year. Kenyan money that was lost because the serviced were not necessary. This work used to be done by the NHIF legal team but the chair pushed that it be done with a firm which did half the job. the contracts were returned to the legal team for implementation.. to save face, the legal team did the work as MMC was paid millions that should have been paid to hospitals.
Suspended CEO Geoffrey Mwangi (right) and Finance Director Kurgat in court, they were suspended in December 2018
Areas of concern
1. was contracting necessary to pay close to half a billion yet staff could do the work?
2. payment was done yet the finance and investment committee of the board of management minutes were not duly signed by the chair and CEO
3. The number of contracts – 6700 stated in the board minutes and passed by the board yet 7009 contracts were paid.
4. In march 2019, 34% of the contracts had been worked on and 78% of the total bill paid
5. The contract is to run for 2 years as per the service level agreement yet the board had stated it covers 3 years..why was it shortened than 78% of the money disbursed 6 months later yet the contract was for 2 years?
6. payments done yet the full board minutes not signed by chair who is elusive to sign since she is the deal owner.
The above are based on facts lifted from NHIF.
ALSO READ: Exposed: The Powerful Hand Behind Hannah Muriithi’s Looting Of NHIF – Part 8 of 20
According to figures given by NHIF acting CEO, the national insurer collects between Ksh2 – 3 billion per month.
Now that they want it to behave like a private entity, many Kenyans will suffer.
This country needs that the board of NHIF be disbanded and reconstituted afresh with less thieving chair.
New Changes
