Counties

Kemsa seeks Senate help in bid to recover Sh2bn from counties

kemsa

Kemsa chief executive Jonah Manjari. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) has sought Senate intervention to recover Sh2.1 billion owed by counties for medical supplies.

Kemsa chief executive Jonah Manjari told Senate that efforts to recover the money through intervention of Council of Governors (CoG), Treasury and the Controller of Budget (CoB) have borne no fruit.

Nairobi and Narok counties top the list of debtors that owe Kemsa, with Sh309.3 million and Sh104.5 respectively.

“We have exhausted our channels of communication, which is the reason we are asking Senate to come to our aid,” he said.

Nairobi’s debt has accumulated over two years with the county making financial commitments but failing to honour them.

Narok remain non-committal despite being served with demand letters and meetings held with the county finance, procurement and health management teams.

Data from Kemsa shows other top debtors are Kisumu (Sh72.5 million), Nyeri (Sh61.6 million), Vihiga (Sh59 million), Kilifi (Sh58.5 million) and Kitui (Sh56.8 million).

“Our biggest challenge is in counties where there was a change of guard, with the current regime saying they will not pay until they are done auditing pending bills of their predecessors,” said Dr Manjari.