President William Ruto on Wednesday said he was unable to deliver his pre-election pledge of ensuring all Kenyans were enrolled into the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) because of corruption.
“I had not imagined the rot at NHIF was all that grave. The mess in it was more than I had imagined. I had to reschedule the promise but I’m on track,” he said.
He said he has now appointed a new board to NHIF and for the health sector, he will ensure the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) is restructured to drive out cartels choking it.
Dr Ruto added that he will push for the digitisation of health supplies and remittances to the NHIF.
He said the programme will be through in the next 6 months.
“It is unacceptable that 85 percent of government services is analogue. For example, 60 percent of VAT collection targets are collected manually, the rest getting lost in corruption,” he said.
The president said he will stop the haemorrhage of money in corruption cartels “and I will ensure that we stop appetite for debts and plunder”.
He said his target is to collect an extra of Sh500 billion by July and all of it reach National Treasury without getting lost on the way.
“This will no longer be the animal farm where some are more equal than others. Starting with me, all of us will pay taxes. We will seal the loopholes that encourage tax evasion. We will raise taxes without increasing tax regimes…I will collect an extra trillion by 2025 and double the whole amounts by 2027,” he said.
About education, he said everything was hurried in the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) implementation to a point it confused everyone and everything.
“Bear with me as we untangle the mess. We will tidy it up. We will invest in human resource in schools and in skills…China is coming in to equip 70 TVETs,” he said.
He added that University funding by government currently stands at 52 percent “and as they search for 48 percent fund deficit, we are getting it all wrong. Duplication of programmes in education another big issue…our universities are in chaotic status in all aspects”.
Dr Ruto added that bandits are terrorists “but we are better in violence…we have for example nabbed two financiers of coastal region terror cells with their billions. We are investing in special forces…in short we are going to make them sing. If this govt won’t solve it, I doubt whether there is one that will ever. We are that solution”. BY DAILY NATION