CS Nakhumicha says Ksh.63.7M was lost in Mosquito nets scandal

This was after the procurement process was bungled leading to the dismissal of the Principal Secretary for Health in charge of Public Health and Professional Standards, Dr. Josephine Mburu, KEMSA CEO and Chairman, as well as the board.

Global Fund had floated the multi-billion tender for the supply of 10.2 million long-lasting polyethylene and polyester nets to be distributed from November this year to July next year as part of the fight against Malaria mass campaign.

Two companies made the cut out of 17 and submitted their tenders to Global Fund but were nullified on grounds that they failed to meet the mandatory documentation requirement.

This forced the Global Fund to cancel the tender and offer it directly to its own procurement wing Wambo.org.

Shedding light on the matter, CS Nakhumicha told the Parliamentary Health Committee on Tuesday that the health ministry and the Global Fund clashed on the specifications of the nets to be delivered, resulting in an amendment of the tender.

"Global Fund gave reasons on why they decided to go to Wambo. One is that a new open international tender would need to be issued which would take longer based on our procurement regulation," she said.

"They noted the gaps in the procurement process and therefore they were cautioning themselves and ourselves against the gaps which I believe now is an opportunity we clean up our house to be able to carry out the next procurement of Global Fund."

The Health CS went on to add that due to the precipice experienced in the procurement process, the ministry suffered a 2% loss which would be the profit they were expecting to make.

"Many times we say there are no losses but there are to the extent that advertisement was done, committees sat to do evaluation and time was invested in that decision," she said.

"There is what we were to make out of that process which is 2% and that is what we lost. Had we completed the process and procured the nets we would have earned our 2% for that process. That would be $455,000 (Ksh.63.7M)."

She however stated that there will still be a mass campaign for mosquito nets in November this year.