• Counties were supposed to pay a fixed sum of Sh95.7 million annually for seven years but amount spiked to Sh200 million per county.
• Medical experts argue it was cheaper to buy the gadgets instead of leasing them, senators were investigating whether taxpayer got raw deal.
Image: FILE
A Senate committee probing the controversial Sh63 billion medical equipment programme may release its report next week, the Star has learnt.
The ad hoc committee that has been investigating the Managed Equipment Scheme programme has completed the probe after six months of intense work.
The committee chaired by Isiolo Senator Fatuma Dullo has been inquiring into the deal since last September following claims it was a rip-off of the taxpayer.
Dullo said the report could be tabled as early as next week should the House decide to continue sitting in the wake of the coronavirus disease.
The House resumes sittings on Tuesday after a two-week break meant to contain the spread of the disease.
Speaker Kenneth Lusaka had indicated to the Star that the members’ immediate agenda would be to deliberate whether they need to continue sitting.
“We are going to make a decision on whether we need to continue or review our position. When we made the decision to come back, the crisis was just starting. We had not recognised the magnitude of the problem,” Lusaka said at the weekend.
Dullo said should the House resolve to proceed with it sittings, then the much-awaited report could be tabled on the floor next week.
“The problem has been this virus and the break that we took. Otherwise, we would have tabled it. We already have a draft and we just need a sitting [of the committee] to ratify and finalise everything,” she said.
The Isiolo senator said the report will reveal the details of the deal that has been shrouded in mystery since it was signed in 2015.
The programme entails leasing of assorted medical gadgets to select national and county government hospitals for seven years ending 2022.
The renal, laboratory, ICU radiology and theatre equipment were leased to at least two level 4 hospitals in each of the 47 counties.
In the deal signed at State House in 2015, a fixed sum of Sh95.7 million was supposed to be deducted annually for seven years from each county to pay for the equipment but the amount increased along the way to Sh200 million per county.
This abrupt increase coupled with complaints from the county governments that they were coerced to accept the programme prompted the committee to investigate the deal.
Medical experts and county governments have claimed the cost of the project was ballooned and that the taxpayer got a raw deal.
They argued that it was easier and cheaper to directly buy the gadgets instead of leasing them.
The nine-member committee grilled several government officials and directors of the internal firms who supplied the equipment and their local agents, including immediate former Attorney General Paul Kihara and former Health CS Sicily Kariuki.
Others are top officials from Kenya Bureau of Standards, Kenya Medical Supplies Authority and Pharmacy and Poisons Board, among others.
Edited by R.Wamochie