Inside turf wars that caused Health PS Josephine Mburu's firing

 

Vicious turf wars for the control of billions of donor funds for months cocked up the health ministry before a radical purge by President William Ruto.

The Star has established that ex-Principal Secretary Peter Tum was embroiled in nasty fights with ousted PS Josephine Mburu over the management of massive donor resources.

Tum, who was in charge of Medical Services, has since been moved to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Arts and Sports while Mburu was fired from the State Department for Public Health and Professional Standards.

The genesis of their turf wars was the sharing of financial portfolios between their two departments given that they came into office in the middle of a financial year.

As the wars started, it was initially decided that Tum would be the principal signatory to all Ministry of Health documents.

It would later dawn that Mburu was unhappy with the resolution amid fears that she was being relegated and isolated from the nerve centre of financial power.

The ousted PS would later pour out her heart to the Senate Health Committee in Mombasa, claiming that she was 'just a flower girl' at the giant ministry where she alleged that Tum ran the show.

After the open session, Mburu requested for a private meeting with the committee in which, the Star understands, she opened up about her frosty relationship with Tum.

According to the Ministry of Health staff who are aware of the wars, Mburu and Tum were engaged in vicious fights that triggered a major rift among them.

"It was clear from the word go that their relationship was bad. The crux of the matter was that Mburu was in charge of most of the donor funds. This made her look so powerful in the whole ministry," a source aware of the issues told the Star.

According to the source, to strike a power balance owing to the fact that the public health docket controls funding for Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV, a decision was made to split some of the donor programmes.

Later, Tum was handed HIV funding, Universal Health Coverage and managed equipment services while Malaria and Tuberculosis remained under Mburu.

"The consensus was arrived at so as to deal with the turf wars and they both were cordial and agreed to share the dockets. These fights at the ministry were nothing but about resources," the source added.

As the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency came under a hail of another scandal last week involving a botched tender for mosquito nets, Tum had to travel to Geneva for talks with the Global Fund.

The Global Fund was financing the Sh3.7 billion programme before it was stopped over irregularities in the tendering process.

The agency had moved the procurement to the Global Fund's online portal, Wambo.Org  in a bid to have the treated nets supplied on time.

Tum returned to Kenya without a resolution to the matter. As he landed in Nairobi on Sunday, President Ruto on Monday fired Mburu and transferred Tum.