‘KEMSA clean-up begins today,’ CS Nakhumicha says as new board assumes office

Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha said Thursday she is determined to oversee change in the scandal-laden Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA).

Speaking when the new KEMSA board assumed office alongside the agency’s staff who had been sent home pending investigations into a bungled mosquito nets tender, Nakhumicha said the board’s first meeting was set for Thursday to deliberate transforming the agency.

“I ask the investigating officers to hasten and give us the results. We shall put a closure to this matter once we have the results. Cleanup begins today with this new board. They are going to have their first meeting today so that they have a roadmap of how to get out of this,” the CS said.

“The walls of Kemsa must be opened up, we want to know what happens here and that is the responsibility I have given the board.”

President William Ruto on Monday revoked KEMSA board appointments and a new board comprising the chairperson and four board members.

This is amid a probe into allegations of corruption and mismanagement of medical supplies at the agency, which also saw the CEO suspended alongside three staffers.

The scandal involves a bungled procurement process handled by the Ministry of Health that left the country on the verge of losing Ksh.3.7 billion worth of anti-Malaria nets from the Global Fund.

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

Locally, the tender was floated in January this year but ran into headwinds soon after with the health ministry and the Global Fund clashing on the specifications of the nets to be delivered, resulting in an amendment of the tender and the extension of the same.

According to the evaluating committee, a total of 17 bids were received, with five making the cut.

But a review of the tenders by the Global Fund showed that the five bids were not qualified.

Only two companies, Tianjin Yorkool and Premium Movers, who were deemed unfit by the tenders evaluation committee should have made the cut, while Vka Polymers pvt, Shobikaa Impex, and Partec East Africa, which were ranked as qualified should have been disqualified for incomplete pagination.

The Global Fund in its final assessment of the tenders submitted that the two bids assessed as responsive (Shobikaa for polyethene nets and Partec East for polyester nets) failed to meet the mandatory documentation requirement and should not have proceeded to the technical, and financial and post qualification phase.

The tender did not yield responsive bids.

This forced the Global Fund to cancel the tender and offer it directly to its own procurement wing Wambo.org in a move that is expected to see Kenya lose hundreds of millions of shillings in funding.

If the tender had been handled by Kenya, KEMSA would have received 2% or Ksh.74 million as part of the procurement fee, and 8% or Ksh.295 million as warehousing and distribution charges.

On Thursday, CS Nakhumicha said KEMSA had yet to reach out to Global Fund but noted that Kenya’s relationship with the international health financing organisation goes beyond the mosquito nets tender.

“The Global Fund has been partners with the Ministry of Health for a very long time and so it I part of the process that at a certain level KEMSA communicates with the Global Fund to seek concurrence on where they are on the process and whether to proceed or not. We want to work on the reason we got a No response from Global Fund so that in future we get a Yes,” the minister said.