Mombasa Health sector has been in panic mode since the day the new governor Abdulswamad Sheriff Nassir constituted a taskforce to collect views to streamline the pathetic condition left behind by the retired regime of former Governor Hassan Joho.
The ailing department has been under serious criticism both in mainstream and social media after Joho administration turned it into cash cow by plotting incompetent officers like Pauline Oginga to please political god fathers and aide illegal tendering processes. The arrogant Ms Oginga who has been working as the Health Chief Officer is said to be ODM leader/ Opposition Chief Raila Odinga’s adopted daughter.
She is among the rogue officers who squandered Covid-19 funds and should face graft related charges in court. Her incompetence, behavior and attitude has caused rifts between her and elected leaders from the county who have petitioned Governor Abdulswamad to fire and replace her her with a qualified a medical practitioner.
Rights groups and the civil society have also been mounting pressure for her removal due to her blatant corrupt nature and for turning the health docket into a cash cow at the expense of tax payers.
The task force chaired by Chibanzi Mwachonda has its preliminary report ready is expected to present its views and recommendations on how to reform the department which has been characterized by massive corruption under Pauline Oginga when flamboyant Joho was at the helm.
And while collecting views the taskforce also discovered that the morale of workers at the department had gone down and it attributes the dire situation to the poor working relations between the junior staff and the management. A majority of the junior staff had been bullied and turned into conduits as the senior management went on a looting spree to illegally enrich themselves.
Options to overhaul the entire department is one of the recommendations the team has presented to governor Abdulswama as a sure way of rooting out ghost workers who have led to a bloated wage bill. So as the county awaits for the official report to be handed to the governor who is in Naivasha for a retreat, it is expected that senior management positions as that held by Ms Oginga will be handed to competent medical practitioners and not political appointees who lack basic managerial skills.
There are also calls for the disbandment of the board of Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital before the governor announces his cabinet nominees which is expected at the end of the next week. The CEO Iqbal Khandwala has been on the spotlight for turning the public health facility into a money minting machine through corrupt dealings.
Khandwala runs a ring of cartels made up of senior officials who are using the largest referral hospital in Mombasa County to corruptly enrich themselves with total disregard to the public. The rogue chief executive had to be forced to rescind inhumane decision he made in 2020 that would have forced patients to pay cash deposits before being admitted.
The hospital management must be fixed together with County’s department if the new government is serious about bringing sanity to health sector in Mombasa. Kenyan Bullentin has further discovered that tainted county chief officers who worked in Joho’s administration have resigned after word went round that the new governor is planning to send them home on compulsory leave.
Not much can be expected from the new administration since the new governor is Joho’s protégé but restructuring the ailing Health Department remains the new governors litmus test since most of the county executives are sacred cows who were hand-picked during the reign of his incompetent predecessor. The taskforce recommends that those who are interested in making a comeback should follow the due process and reapply through the county public service board.
