The Health Ministry has voiced concerns over multibillion-shilling budget cuts that it says will affect, among others, strategic HIV-Aids drugs provision.
Appearing before the National Assembly’s Health committee, Medical Services Principal Secretary Hillary Kimtai demanded the state department get back the Sh254.2 billion cut proposed in the Budget Policy Statement 2025.
The crucial docket had Sh426.8 billion resource requirement in the 2025-26 financial year but was only allocated Sh172.6 billion.
“We continue to reiterate the need to enhance upwards the budgetary allocation for the state department if we are to deal with the funding challenges we continue to experience,” Kimtai told the committee chaired by Endebess MP Robert Pukose.
With donors cutting funding, it is feared the move might leave the country’s health sector struggling to provide essential life-saving services.
Programmes such as HIV across the country are at immediate risk.
The state department is at the centre of the universal health coverage being rolled out by the government and which is billed as the only way to ensure access of quality heathcare to Kenyans without suffering financial burden.
Kimtai at the same time wants Parliament’s intervention to urgently allocate Sh30 billion to procure HIV drugs in the face of withdrawal of USAID funding to some critical programmes.
The money, according to the PS, would go a long way in financing HIV commodities and Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Adolescent Health.
The billions will also be channelled towards human resources for health.
“The recent challenges of US government funding require the government to intervene to sustain provision of healthcare services in the country,” he told MPs.
United States had early this year proposed a massive cut to its annual funding for Kenya’s HIV programmes.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief complained Kenya has become one of its biggest beneficiaries since 2003 but is doing too little to increase domestic funding to fight HIV.
This year, Pepfar said it will cut its funding to Kenya by Sh2.27 billion. Pepfar proposes to give Kenya $345 million (Sh39.17 billion), compared to $365 million (Sh41.44 billion) in 2021.
Yesterday, PS Kimtai told the Pukose-led committee that Health Cabinet Secretary Debra Barasa was engaging top leadership of the US embassy in Nairobi on Wednesday over the matter.
Kimtai further wants Parliament to allocate Sh30 billion for the public financed primary health care system.
The ministry is also pushing for Sh3 billion towards blood transfusion, which it notes still remain unfunded following declining donor support.
