Queen of thieves: NHIF Board Chairperson Hannah Muriithi
The ills of the National Hospital Insurance Fund must be brought forth, documented until action is taken on the corrupt board.
The board headed by Ms Hannah Muriithi should be disbanded, arrested and charged with stealing billions of shillings meant for sick Kenyans.
NHIF which collects over Ksh3 billion a months saw it fit to pay per diems in excess of nearly 1 million for two senior managers attending conferences that have no value addition to the running f the government body.
'Out of the amount, Ksh993,220 was paid to two board members as per diem after one of them attended a devolution conference in Kakamega and another one the Mombasa ASK Show', a report showed. The Ksh38 million Last month, documents before the National Assembly's Public Investment Committee also indicated that the NHIF spent Ksh13.1 million on seminars and conferences.
According to Mr Ouko's report, further expenditure on the seminars and conference includes Sh3.9m recorded as "transfer to provisions".
The financial report for the year ended June 2018 signed by former Auditor-General Edward Ouko questioned Ksh38 million expenditure recorded as 'board expenses, seminars and conferences' without supporting evidence. The NHIF said the amount was imprest issued for board expenses "but was wrongly labelled as transfer to provisions".
Mr Ouko said the NHIF did not provide any evidence to support the claim. "Although the management has explained that these are imprest issued for board expenses and wrongly described as transfers to provisions, no evidence was availed (sic) to support this claim," reads the audit report.
The NHIF further paid Sh4.6 million to Harvard Business School for the training of two of its board members.
The audit report, however, indicates that the NHIF did not provide board approval for the training of the two officers for audit verification as required by law.
The auditor also questioned why the training of the two board members could not be done locally to save taxpayers the millions used abroad as training fees. MORE ‘NHIF Is A Scam’, Kenyans Share Their Experiences How NHIF Fleeces The Poor To Serve The Rich Corrupt NHIF Board Still In Office After Geofrey Mwangi’s Sacking