Cotu rejects bid to make employers pay NHIF contributions

The Central Organisation of Trade Unions has opposed the proposal for employers to pay NHIF for their workers.

Cotu and its 45 affiliates have rejected the NHIF (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in totality saying it was retrogressive.

The workers union argument is that the bill seeks to change NHIF from a fund to a scheme, a move they hold will change the entity’s mandate.

“In essence, this amendment bill will disband NHIF and bring up an amorphous body with a new mandate and new objectives,” Cotu said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This is against the wish of Kenyan workers who are the contributing members of NHIF,” unionists said following a meeting in Nairobi.

The NHIF Bill, 2021 provides that employers will pay contributions for their staffers and not deduct the same from the employees’ pay.

“A person liable to pay a matching contribution shall pay such contributions in their capacity as an employer and shall not deduct such contribution from the salary or other remuneration of the employee,” the Bill reads.

“No sum deducted from the salary of an employee by an employer shall be recoverable from the employer by that person once remitted to the Fund.”

Employers failing to remit contributions will be penalised 25 per cent of the contribution.

“The employer will be liable to pay the penalty and costs incurred by the employee when seeking treatment from a contracted healthcare provider during the period when the contribution is due,” the Bill reads.

Currently, NHIF contributions are voluntary while employees have contribution deducted from their gross pay every month.

The proposed law is among steps being taken by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration to bolster the Big Four agenda of Universal Health Coverage.

NHIF currently has slightly more than eight million members, a number that would likely double, as there are slightly more than 30 million Kenyan above age 18.

The NHIF board shall prescribe the mode of identification of a beneficiary, “taking into account the existing legal framework for national registration”.