Numbers into Perspective: The Loot at National Hospital Insurance Fund

Kenyans woke this morning with the #ProbeNHIFCorruption hashtag, calling on the government to probe the possible misappropriation of public funds at the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).

According to reports, the government should probe the unexplained 3,973,462,758 shillings. This is in line with the approval of the constructions and completion of a multi-storey car park at the cost of 909,709,305 shillings. It is said that the amount was later revised upwards to 1,179,611,756 shillings, 30 percent above the original quoted amount.

Although the available records show that the car park was completed at the cost of 3,342,120,239 shillings, a further 626,635,998 and 4,706,521 was incurred without pre-requisite approval increasing its expenditure to 3,973,642,758 shillings as at June 2011, an increase of more than 337 percent over the original cost.

It also emerged that some hospital under the NHIF program colluded with some senior officers at the body to place false and fictitious claims using members’ cards without their consent with an aim to defraud NHIF a total of 500,000,000 shillings. This was later admitted by the management when they agreed that the public was indeed losing more than 500,000,000 shillings monthly through the fraudulent scheme.

It is said that NHIF might have misappropriated 500,820,320 shillings in a piece of land located in Karen whose ownership is still in dispute. The plot number is NO.LR 24968/2. NHIF got the piece of land at the cost of 93,712,675 shillings to build a resource center. It commissioned a consultant to carry out a feasibility study at the cost of 734,524,029.25 shillings but the fee was not paid because the Fund had not received prior approval for the work from the parent ministry. The consultant went to court, won the case and the court ordered the fund to pay 407,107,645 shillings representing the principal sum of the interest.

NHIF also is said to have paid contractors a total of 1,444,687,484 in respect to drawing and designs proposed for the construction of the resource center whose construction is yet to commence. There is also a total of 63,530,668 shillings that the Accounting Officer at the Fund has failed to account for. There is also the provision of impaired investment amounting to 45.9 million shillings as well as the uncollected revenues amounting to 597,828,290 shillings.