Suspended Kemsa boss, PS differ on procurement of Covid-19 kits

Suspended Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) chief executive Jonah Manjari has contradicted Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache over procurement Covid-19 related items worth billions of shillings.

Dr Manjari told the Public Investments Committee that the ministry was fully aware of all procurement of Covid-19 Items by Kemsa.

He said a taskforce domiciled at the Ministry of Health came up with a needs assessment of Covid-19 materials.

“On February 5, the director-general Patrick Amoth wrote to us and told us to prepare specification for Covid-19 commodities yet the specifications was supposed to come from the Ministry of Health for us to work on,” he said.

“It shows that we started preparing in February and come March 2020, we kept on being asked whether we were prepared. We attended many meetings at the Ministry where we demonstrated our preparedness. I am giving facts as they are. I will table the letter,” Dr Manjari told the committee probing the Sh7.6 billion Covid-19 procurements.

On Tuesday, Ms Mochache told the same committee that the ministry was kept in the dark over Covid-19 related procurements.

Ms Mochache said that the ministry on March 18 ordered Kemsa to procure 25,000 PPE kits, 10,000 pieces of N95 masks, 6,000 laboratory sample collection and transportation consumables and 6,000 laboratory test kits, supplies and reagents.

But the agency on April 1, submitted a report to the ministry, which showed it had entered into supplies commitments worth Sh2.18 billion of Covid-19 items out of which goods worth Sh149.1 million had been delivered leaving a balance of Sh2 billion.