Parliament backs sacking of 900 Kemsa workers

Parliament has backed the scandal-hit Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) decision to send home all its 900 workers to pave the way for reforms.

The National Assembly’s Health committee said it has been assured that the reforms will be undertaken in a humane and in strict compliance with the law.

The committee asked the affected employees “to be at peace and wait for the reform process to go on” to its logical conclusion.

The committee announced that it is satisfied with the reforms plan drawn up by the Kemsa board to restructure the scandal tainted agency.

The Kemsa board, led by chairperson Mary Mwadime, sent home the workers as it moves to undertake reforms guided by a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) which was formulated and executed before the release of staff.

Kemsa last Thursday ordered all its non-core staff to work from home over the next 30 days pending a review of their positions.

Of Kemsa’s estimated 900 workers, about 340 are considered essential and will continue to work from the office over the next month.

The move to send home non-core workers followed findings of a recent survey that revealed that Kemsa is underperforming and is unable to deliver services to Kenyans.

Some of the problems revealed included, financial crisis, lack of financial control, uncollected debts, supply chain crisis, warehousing and distribution problems, deadstock and purchase of non-priority items.

The State-owned firm is undertaking reforms in the wake of a Sh7.8 billion scandal relating to the procurement of Covid-19 emergency equipment.

“It is important that we take Kemsa where it was. The few issues that have come up is inevitable and can be painful at some point and we just want to urge employees to be at peace and wait for the process to go on.

“I know from what we have been briefed, that this team is keen and that they don’t want to hurt people. They are going to do the process in a very smooth manner,” Sabina Chege, who chairs the committee said.

Kemsa said the multi-agency operations team is handling logistics, human resource management, quality assurance, physical and information security, among others.

"We are comfortable to hear that the board is in full control. The whole issue about the military and the National Youth Service (NYS) that has been flying around we have been assured is misguided," Chege said at a Nairobi hotel.

The committee asked the board to take care of the employees sent home as the entity restructures and follow the due process of the law.

“We have been briefed that this is a process that will involve a multi-agency team (MAT) and a lot of people will come in and we hope that they will handle it with a lot of humanity to make sure the transition will be smooth,” she said.

The committee said the board had been asked to ensure that a proper management team is installed at Kemsa.

The House team also asked Kemsa to ensure that it does not interfere with suppliers as it undertakes reforms.

“We have been told that Kemsa is almost on its knees because there are many people that owe them money.

“My appeal to County governments is that if you owe Kemsa, kindly pay so that they can be able to sustain themselves and buy supplies to supply you,” Ms Chege said.