Muraguri faces EACC as civil society calls for audit of HIV millions
Health Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri will appear before the EACC investigators on Wednesday. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
Watchdog says it has already grilled some senior officials at the Health ministry.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)Tuesday started questioning top Health ministry officials in relation to the suspected loss of Sh5.3 billion at Afya House, on a day civil society organisations demanded an independent audit of some Sh515 million said to have been spent on food and supplements for Kenyans living with HIV.
EACC chief executive Halakhe Waqo said the watchdog had already grilled the head of internal audit unit at the Health ministry, Bernard Muchere, and the ministry’s head of accounting unit, Joyce Mutugi.
“The Health Principal Secretary, Nicholas Muraguri, will appear before the EACC investigators tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 a.m,” said Mr Waqo. Civil society organisations yesterday said they have not received supplements for the past four years, contrary to Health ministry records.
The Network of People Living with HIV and Aids in Kenya (Nephak) said in a statement prepared on behalf of nine civil society organisations that a sizeable number of Kenyans have had to stop taking anti-retroviral medication due to a lack of food supplements, which they say are not available to them at health centres countrywide.
The interim audit on the ministry’s expenditure which came to light last week showed that Sh515 million was lost through a programme under the National Aids Control Council (NACC) meant to buy food and rations for HIV-infected people.
“This (lack of food supplements) has been the situation since 2012 and the response from the Ministry of Health has been that there is no funding for such and that HIV treatment services are devolved to counties. We are therefore surprised that the national government purports to have imported large volumes of food and nutritional supplements,” said Nephak executive director Nelson Otuoma.
“We do not know whether they have been imported yet, and are maybe stored at Kemsa… let the cabinet secretary tell us where the food supplements are. Our position is that the same ministry cannot be allowed to appoint an external auditor, we need an independent and reputable audit team to verify issues raised in the interim internal audit report,” he said.
The civil society was responding to an explanation given on Monday by the Health ministry absolving itself of wrongdoing in spending for supplements.
In the unsigned statement, the ministry said that it requested for Sh515.8 million from the Treasury to augment funding from global funds on HIV/Aids, targeting over 750,000 patients who use nutritional foods.
