The government has acknowledged that it's facing financial challenges in the healthcare system regarding the facilitation of community health promoters, in its quest to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
Speaking during an assessment visit to the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Deputy President, Kithure Kindiki, revealed that while the government has allocated Kshs 2.5 billion for Community Health Promoters (CHPs), the total primary healthcare budget of Kshs 6.2 billion falls short of what's needed to fully implement the programme. "The total budget may not be adequate, and therefore we are looking at ways of, if, for example, we need a supplementary budget, again, resources permitting," Kindiki admitted, attributing part of the funding challenges to setbacks in revenue collection earlier in the year.
He also linked this to the collapse of the impugned Finance Bill, 2024, through which the government had sought to raise supplementary revenue of around Kshs 340 billion. "As you know, early this year, the revenue-raising instruments that was proposed did not materialize - the Finance Bill, 2024 - and that affected funding of sectors across government," he said.
Speaking on Monday during Taifa Care Express Mombasa County, Senior Adviser, Council of Economic Advisors at State House, Moses Kuria, assured CHPs that all their stipend arrears would be paid in full in due course. "Today during our closed-door meeting, I was handed the list of all those with arrears.
