• According to auditors, ministry explained that it varied the contract because of the addition of 24 hospitals to the initial list.
• However, it emerged that the officials did not provide documents to authenticate the variation of the contract.
Image: HEZRON NJOROGE
The Ministry of Health is on spot the for 'arbitrarily' varying the leased medical equipment contract from Sh38 billion to Sh63 billion.
The Auditor-General had disclosed that a Health Information Management System (HIMS) that was to be used for inter-link within the health facilities was not installed as contained in the contract.
According to the auditors, the ministry explained that it varied the contract because of the addition of 24 hospitals to the initial list of facilities to receive the equipment.
However, the officials did not provide documents to authenticate the variation of the contract.
The Senate ad hoc committee probing the scandal sought to know from the auditors why the amount was increased despite not having needs assessment or requests from the counties.
The team is chaired by Isiolo Senator Fatuma Dulo. Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula questioned why counties were being forced to pay Sh105 million more for equipment that was not confirmed to have been delivered and software installed.
"Was there any needs assessment done or request by the counties to get more supplies for the additional health facilities?" he asked.
The contract entailed leasing of assorted medical equipment – renal, laboratory, ICU, radiology and theatre equipment – to at least two hospitals in each county for seven years.
It also included the installation of the equipment and training of technical staff.
The contract had envisaged training of the medical practitioners to handle the equipment but it was not done.
Special Audit deputy director Sammy Kimunguri told the senators that comprehensive details of why the variations were done will be revealed once the auditors complete auditing the Ministry of Health for 2018-19.
“Needs assessment of the variations or requests from the counties could be there but they have not been provided. We can only conclusively say they are not there when we finish the audit process,” Kimunguri said while tabling a list of the 24 health facilities.
He disclosed that despite the agreement that suppliers were to deliver the equipment to the health facilities, they had not physically verified whether they had been supplied.
“We have not physically confirmed if the equipment were supplied as per the contract. We can only conclusively state that once the audit is completed."
On Monday, senators pressed to know why, despite signing a contract, the installation of software for the HIMS to inter-link the recipient facilities was not done.
“Why was there uniform deductions yet there was no uniform utilisation of the equipment in the counties?” Bomet Senator Andrew Langat asked.
Governors had complained that the lease was shrouded in mystery and protested that they were manipulated, blackmailed and coerced to sign the agreement.
They claimed that most of the equipment was idle due to lack of technical staff despite the ministry deducting the money annually.
Edited by R.Wamochie