NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 10 – The Kenya Institute of Supplies Management (KISM) has urged the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) to involve it in all planned reform decisions.
John Karani, CEO of KISM welcomed KEMSA Board’s efforts to transform it into a public body but said involvement of all stakeholders is key.
“While we welcome the reforms, we note with some alarm that all the staff suspended from the warehouse and the procurement departments are KISM members. We want to be involved in investigations involving our members with a view of subjecting them to our internal disciplinary mechanisms,” said Karani.
The suspension of more than 900 staff at KEMSA to pave way for reforms has raised alarm from various stakeholders leading to court cases in which a petitioner secured an order halting the reforms pending the hearing and determination of his case.
“We are keen to know the criteria KEMSA used to decide who leaves and who remains at the Institution because as a regulatory board we advocate for a systematic, structured, transparent and equitable process,” Karani added and committed to provide KEMSA with technical assistance, expertise and capacity building that would help it deliver its mandate of providing Kenyans with enough medical supplies.
However, he called for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Inspector General and Board of Directors to hold each public officer, especially the Accounting Officers accountable.
He further urged the Kenya Power and Lightning company (KPLC) to avoid bias towards the supply and procurement team following the suspension of 59 top officials at the parastatal.
“We do not say they are innocent, but we want to push for a fair and transparent process where our members are subjected to due process and avoid being profiled,” Karani added.
Moses Omondi, Chair of the registration and licensing committee, reiterated that everyone should be held accountable in the supply chain process, not only the supply and procurement team.
“The council would like to comment that the procurement division plays no role in any of the accusations. We do not believe they are solely responsible for all operational and financial problems faced by KPLC. This creates an effect of diverting attention from the real cause of the deeply entrenched institutional problems,” he said.
On Wednesday, KEMSA board assured donors and development partners invested in the local health sector that ongoing reforms at the Authority are being undertaken in strict compliance with due process and labour laws.
Speaking after updating international development partners, KEMSA Chairperson Mary Mwadime said the Board had scaled up organisational turn-around efforts to provide a solid foundation for the uptake of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) goal among other national healthcare development plans.
“A dysfunctional KEMSA slows down healthcare delivery goals and is a liability to the envisaged positive national healthcare outcomes and the Board is committed to facilitating reforms to set the authority on a recovery path. This will include structured engagements with several county governments to settle their outstanding bills amounting to more than Kshs 6 Billion,” she said.
The development partners present, included representatives from the World Health Organisation, Global Fund, USAID, CDC, UNAIDS, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Bank among others.
The KEMSA Board accompanied by the Acting Chief Executive Officer Edward Njoroge engaged the development partners who had converged under their umbrella body, the Development Partners for Health in Kenya (DPH-K), as part of ongoing stakeholder engagements.
She assured DPH-K members that the reforms are not a knee jerk reaction and are based on a well-considered reform plan formulated by the new KEMSA Board. The Board, she reiterated, is firmly in control of the Authority and is providing policy oversight working closely with a mission critical core KEMSA Management Team assisted by a multi-agency team to be drawn from public sector experts. The multi-agency officers will be drawn from the Public Service Commission, State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC), Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Service and Gender Affairs, Ministry of Information, Communication, Technology and Youth Affairs, Ministry of Defence, The National Treasury and the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government among others.
Currently, the Authority, she said, is operating under a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which was formulated and executed before the release of non-core staff last week, with the necessary interventions in place to avoid undue disruptions to service delivery and day to day operations. She explained that the multi-agency operations team, anchoring the BCP, is handling logistics, human resource management, quality assurance, physical and information security, among other dockets.
She confirmed that the KEMSA Board is working under a tight deadline to facilitate organisational changes. “Sufficient organisational changes that can restore the Authority’s glory as a strategic State Corporation mandated to undertake roles and responsibilities that ensure supply chain excellence for Health Products and Technologies (HPTs) countrywide.” She said.
The reforms at the Authority, she disclosed, are part of the far-reaching recommendations outlined in several KEMSA restructuring reports, including the latest KEMSA Immediate Action Plan and Medium Term Reforms Working Committee (KIAPRWC) report. Commissioned by the Board, the KIAPRWC report revealed challenges in critical functions.
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