It was inevitable that our long standing “bad spending” hydra would infest and infect Kenya’s difficult Covid-19 moment. As a colleague mused on a WhatsApp group of public policy professionals of which I am a member, “these are no longer predictions we make and take credit for having great wisdom…it’s expectation…(and indeed) the low probability prediction (would be) if everything was done right”.
On Monday August 31, in a virtual conference on “County Governments’ Resilience in the Covid-19 Era” hosted by the Council of Governors, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the Ministry of Health to create a digital platform system that publicises Covid-19 procurement details including tender values, evaluation and bid awardees given current heat and light over all that is happening at the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (Kemsa). Using a real Gregorian calendar, we’ll have this platform by October 1.
