Governors reject plan for counties to pay UHC workers

“This arrangement is not acceptable to us; they are just transferring problems to us, which we are not able to deal with. You caused the problem, deal with it until you ensure a seamless arrangement to the contractual end,” Mr Abdullahi said. 

The disagreement comes just days after the healthcare workers held a day-and-night protest outside the Ministry of Health headquarters at Afya House.

The workers, who were hired during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, are frustrated that the government has not fulfilled its promises to provide them with end-of-service payments and permanent employment with pension benefits.

According to an official notice, the UHC medical staff plan to continue their protests on Tuesday and Wednesday, demonstrating both at Afya House and outside the National Assembly to demand action on their employment concerns.

“The genesis of the problem is that the national government continues to disrespect the constitutional provisions with respect to implementation of the policies that they want undertaken by the counties. In our financial framework, the architects of the constitution thought of something called conditional grants, to pay health workers who were recruited during the Covid-19 pandemic because there was need at that time to bolster human resource in health across the 47 counties," Mr Abdullahi added.

Read: The silent grief of Kenyan nurses

“What should have been done then was to give the resources to the counties so that they can recruit professionals they needed for the period that they were needed,” he said while noting that this did not happen.

“Instead, haphazard contracts were awarded and people posted to counties with counties being expected to supervise them, yet they were not in control of the payroll. When they are not on the ground and we want to take disciplinary action, we can’t because we are not the ones who release their salaries, and when we write letters to the health ministry, MoH tell us we direct our complaints to the public service commission,” the governor said.

According to the CoG chair, as for the existing UHC medics’ contract, if MoH has continued to have them on their payroll for the last five years, CoG doesn’t see the urgency to transfer them to the counties.

“There is also the matter of gratuity because UHC medics would have worked for six years, and we are not being told who will pay the gratuity because we do not have the money as counties to pay for it," he said.

"In the past, we have accepted such arrangements but big brother did not keep his part of the bargain and so we will not accept, which is why we are telling the health ministry that they caused the problem and so they must deal with it and if they want us to take them up, they should give us the Sh4.2 billion needed to sort out their mess,” he continued. 

Health CoG chair Governor Muthomi Njuki said UHC medics are currently earning a third of what they are actually entitled to and also revealed health ministry plans to extend the UHC contract by a year before dispatching them to counties.

“What CS Duale is doing to us is tantamount to giving us a sharp knife while holding the handle; we are not going to accept it. The UHC staff since 2020 has been in a job group that is very discriminative compared to other health workers, they earn a third of what their counterparts earn, that contract is coming to an end next year and so we don’t see the urgency to transfer them to counties with the same discriminatory terms of employment minus the prerequisite resources,” Governor Njuki said.

Read: Duale confronted with sad cases of medics denied care over SHA payment delays

Speaking to the Nation, UHC National Chairman Desmond Wafula disclosed that the aggrieved health workers have planned two major ‘day and night’ demos slated for Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Starting tomorrow, all the 8,571 UHC healthcare workers under Kenya’s UHC program will not only down their tools as they did last week but officially withdraw their services. This decision comes after months of unmet promises and growing frustration over the government's failure to address long-standing grievances,” Mr Wafula said.

“Despite UHC workers dedicating themselves tirelessly to serving Kenyans across the country, the government has shown a continued lack of commitment to resolving our concerns. We want fair pay, we want our gratuity, we want them to transfer payroll to the counties with all our budget to facilitate our absorption on permanent terms,” he said. 

Health Minister Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said the Ministry of Health will transfer the payroll to the counties as planned.

“We met with health union leaders and put that matter to rest. If UHC staffers want their money, they should go to the national assembly and ask them to give us the money to pay them; otherwise, we will transfer them as planned,” Mr Duale said.

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