Revealed: KU hospital diverted Covid funds to pay medics in Seychelles

Kenyatta University Teaching, Research and Referral Hospital (KUTRRH) irregularly used public funds to pay the salaries of 50 medics recruited and sent to work in the Seychelles in a Covid-19 response campaign, an audit has shown.

A special audit by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu on how Covid-19 funds were used between March 13, 2020 and July 31, 2020, now before Parliament, shows that the monthly remuneration for the workers came from the Covid-19 kitty. 

This violated the Public Finance Management Act. The kitty was largely financed by loans from Kenya’s development partners.

The audit shows that the Kenyan government received Sh214.91 billion during the period under review to fight the pandemic.

The funds included loans from the World Bank (Sh113.18 billion), International Monetary Fund (Sh78.33 billion), African Development Bank (Sh22.41 billion) and European Union (Sh638.31 million), and a grant from Danida (Sh350 million grant).

The money was meant for the Covid-19 emergency response support and public accountability and services, among other programmes.

It is not clear why Kenya decided to help the Seychelles, which has a higher per capita GDP, at a time the former’s human and financial resources in the healthcare sector had been overstretched by the pandemic.

“The 50 newly recruited staff are serving in another country institution contrary to the purpose of the funds,” the audit says.

Recent figures show that Seychelles had a per capita GDP of $11,425 in 2020, while Kenya’s GDP per capita in 2020 was $1,800.

Justifying expenditure

The audit shows that in the period under review, the KU hospital had received Sh1.3 billion from the Covid-19 fund and as of October 2020, it had used Sh203.54 million.

Acting CEO Dr Victor Njom, appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly, admitted that the request to send the medical personnel to Seychelles did not come with any financial support to the hospital.

But he had a difficult time explaining and justifying the expenditure. 

Although the special audit says the medics were sent to Seychelles for a two-year support mission, Dr Njom said it was only for six months, although he did not support his claim with documentation showing they had come back.

“So, who gave you the authorisation to hire the 50 health personnel and send them to Seychelles? You used Covid money to finance staff working in another country yet the AIE (authority to incur expenditure) does not support that. What did their work entail?” posed PAC chairman Opiyo Wandayi.

Interestingly, Dr Njom did not provide the committee with any documentation showing the 50 health workers travelled to Seychelles.

“How did they leave Kenya to work in another country without any documentation?” Mr Wandayi wondered.
Gatanga MP Joseph Ngugi, a PAC member, questioned the whole arrangement even as he told the hospital boss that he needed to be truthful to the committee.

“Do you have a letter giving you the decree to remunerate them while in Seychelles?” posed Mr Ngugi.

Dr Njom told the committee that the payment was sanctioned through a memo by Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache following an MoU between Kenya and Seychelles on providing health personnel in what he described as a government-to-government arrangement.

Covid-19 funds

“The memo came from the PS that we send the health workers to Seychelles. We got authorisation from the Health PS that because we have Covid-19 funds, we draw from it to support the 50 newly recruited staff,” Dr Njom told the committee.

However, the auditors attached to the PAC, Mr Wandayi and Mr Joseph Nduati, a PAC member, doubted Dr Njom’s assertions.

“This mission being a government-to-government agreement, it should have received its own funding and not the institution’s conditional fund,” the auditors told the committee as they ripped into Dr Njom’s justification.

A look at the Ministry of Health memo of May 4, 2020 shows that the release of the medics to Seychelles was approved pending the Cabinet’s adoption of the conclusion of the MoU between the ministry in Kenya and its equivalent in Seychelles.

Dr Njom did not provide evidence to the committee to show whether the Cabinet had approved the MoU.

The memo also did not provide any authorisation from the Kenyan government that the hospital use Covid-19 funds to pay for the deployed staff.

“The memo you are citing does not compel you to pay the 50 health personnel sent to Seychelles. It was just for noting purposes,” said Mr Ngugi.

The committee was also at a loss on why the hospital was appointed to hire the medics and not the Public Service Commission (PSC) or even Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

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