Health PS Susan Mochahche has maintained that she did not issue directions on the procurement of Covid-19 supplies.
Mochache while appearing before the Health Committee on Wednesday said all procurement for the commodities was done by Kemsa as opposed to what has been reported.
The PS said the ministry was only involved in the utilisation of the Sh1 billion which was donated by the World Bank.
She said the Ministry and World Bank agreed on a budget and procurement plan based on priority areas and requested Kemsa to undertake the procurement process and delivery.
She said in the whole process, CS Mutahi Kagwe was to provide policy on bilateral support while her office was in charge of the requisition of the funds and requests to procure the items.
She said on March 18, she wrote to Kemsa asking them to procure PPEs.
On March 19, she also made another request to procure 6,000 laboratory kits.
On March 23, she said she asked Kemsa CEO Jonah Manjari to urgently facilitate the procurement of 30 ventilators.
On the same day, Mochache said she also asked Kemsa to provide a status report on the procurement.
"On April 2, Kemsa in their response to the procurement status and planned procurement indicated that they had budgeted for a procurement worth Sh2.1 billion but had gotten commodities worth Sh149,000," she said.
According to Mochache, this is where trouble began.
The PS said she urgently called a meeting between Kemsa and the ministry and advised them to rationalise the budget because it had gone beyond what had been budget for.
The PS said Kemsa was only allocated Sh758 million but presented a budget of Sh2 billion.
"They went ahead and scaled-down the budget by reducing the quantities of the commodities they had procured. Since we could not make commitments beyond what was available, we instructed them to disregard all the other procurement because they had gone beyond what had been budgeted for," she said.
"At no time did the ministry submit a list of suppliers, we only adopted a list of rationalised budget," she added.
Mochache said her office was in shock when they got information from the national Treasury informing them that Kemsa had written to them seeking budgetary support of Sh5.14 billion to procure Covid-19 items.
She said Kemsa bypassed the procedures and directly wrote to the Treasury.
According to Mochache, Kemsa had indicated that they had procured goods that had been delivered but not paid for.
"On July 2, I wrote to them and advised them that the funds that they were seeking were not approved. On August 6, Kemsa wrote us a long letter seeking some Sh2.9 billion," she said.
She added, "In fact in their request, they had asked us to allow them to convert some Sh6.7 billion meant to cater for the UHC programme to pay for the PPEs that had been delivered".
She said later on, she found her name in the media with claims that she had issued instructions a list of items and companies from which the items would be procured from.
"Madam chair I want to be on record that I had no intention to manage or direct the procurement process. I have asked Kemsa if they stood with their allegations they leveled against me to provide the letter and up to date I am still waiting," she said.
