The National Assembly during a past session.
MPs are set to revive the ghosts of the controversial Sh63 billion medical equipment service (MES) lease scandal.
The development comes after a Senate committee said it would summon Health Cabinet Secretary Debra Barasa and other officers as they revisit the project.
The Senate County Public Investments and Special Funds committee chairperson Godfrey Osotsi said the committee will also call the Council of Governors and the chair of the Senate Health Committee to appear before the panel.
The move comes after the committee received several complaints from governors over the state of the equipment leased through the controversial deal.
Governors appearing before the committee over consideration of Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu’s report on operations of county hospitals have seen some of the county chiefs say the amount they pay to lease the gadgets is too much since some are not in use.
Some of them complained that they cannot repair the machines and that the contractors are the only people able to supply the spare parts.
“We have resolved to summon the different officers so that we deal with this MES issue once and for all. Like in my county of Vihiga, they could use one of the equipment for years only to realise it was missing a battery,” said Mr Osotsi.
“The machines exist yet there is no value for money from them. This issue should be cleared once and for all because the queries about the equipment cut across all the counties,” added Migori Senator Eddy Oketch.
In May last year, Senate Speaker Amason Kingi ordered the Senate Committee on Health to launch new investigations into the status of the multi-billion shilling programme.
The inquiry came barely three years after the senators rejected a report by an ad-hoc committee that had investigated the deal for more than a year.
The renewed push to open files into the programme had been prompted by a request for a statement by nominated Senator Hamida Kibwana.
The nine-member committee chaired by Uasin Gishu Senator Jackson Mandago was tasked with unraveling the details of the terms of the contract signed by the government on behalf of counties stating the amounts that were agreed upon and the amounts paid since the project's inception.
The panel was also expected to disclose whether the project was tendered, stating who bid and who won the bid and the cost of the awards, further disclosing the contracts each county signed.
Ms Kibwana asked the committee to state the number of equipment delivered and installed in each of the counties while also shedding light on alleged reports of a government decision to abandon the project stating the implications of the decision on the provision of specialised healthcare services.
The contract for the project was signed in 2015 for a period of seven years and as such, the contract expired last December but it is not clear if the counties signed to renew the contracts.
“The committee disclosed the anticipated cost of leasing the equipment per county per month since the initial value was decided based on a group of counties giving the criteria of the basis,” said Ms Kibwana
President Uhuru Kenyatta (2nd right) and DP William Ruto are shown how an ICU machine works by former Director of Medical Services Nicholas Muraguri during the signing of contracts for the Managed Equipment Service (MES) on February 6, 2015.
“They should also ascertain the viability of the counties to engage with the contractors individually stating whether this engagement threatens the continuity of this project,” she added.
The committee was also to disclose the status of Sh5.8 billion that had been allocated for the project, detailing how the funds will now be utilised in light of the reports to abandon the project.
Further, the Senator Mandago-led panel was tasked to reveal the particulars of a payment of Sh3.6 billion disbursed between July and August 2022, disclosing the company it was paid to and for which equipment per county.
However, the committee is yet to get back to the House with the answers requested by the nominated senator.
MES was aimed at equipping hospitals with modern and specialised diagnostic kits, however, the cost of the project became the reason for its controversy.
When the project was first signed in 2015, the contract cost was Sh38 billion but the contract was reviewed all the way and the amount increased to Sh63 billion under unclear circumstances.
In the deal, the Ministry of Health was supposed to deduct a fixed sum of Sh90 million annually from each of the 47 counties and at some point, each county was required to pay Sh200 million every year for the project.
Governors at the time criticised the Health ministry for coercing them to sign the contracts for the supply of the equipment, saying the ministry did not conduct feasibility studies in the counties prior to the roll out.
Narok Senator Ledama Olekina described the project as one of the most controversial programmes in the history of healthcare in Kenya.
He said the scope of the inquiry should be widened to know whether counties had the capacity to utilise the equipment and whether the project has been abandoned.
“This was a very crazy scandal. It is an issue controlled by a cabal or cartels, people who have invested billions of shillings. Maybe now that we have a change of guard, things can be dealt with differently as there was a lot of interest in the matter in the previous regime,” said the ODM senator.
Elgeyo Marakwet Senator William Kisang went ahead to call for formation of an ad hoc committee to be tasked with carrying out a forensic audit of the programme to ensure culpable individuals are brought to book, taken to court and put behind bars.
He claimed that there are some senior civil servants who planned the whole thing and have subsequently exposed taxpayers to pay for equipment they cannot see their benefit.
“It is so sad that it is seven years now and every year we budget and put money to go under the drain in the pretext that we are leasing medical equipment. We don’t even know who we are paying the billions,” said Mr Kisang’.
For his part, Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale said the findings by the committee should detail the action being taken against senior officers at the Ministry of Health who were behind the scandal.
“We have seen a show of opulence displayed by senior officers who were driving the ministry at the time. The committee should tell us whether EACC is on this matter because the country deserves an answer,” he said.
An earlier report by a Senate ad hoc committee which probed the project, said the entire procurement process in the MES project from conceptualisation to its implementation is shrouded in secrecy and smells of irregularities and illegalities.
The report noted that the officials manipulated procurement laws, varied contracts and bulldozed county governments into accepting the equipment without proper consultation between the two levels of government.
However, the report was rejected on the floor as a majority of the senators voted against it, saying the committee had not identified specific individuals who bungled the programme.
