Activist Okiya Omtatah has moved to court to stop the appointment of Peter Kamunyo Gathegea as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
Mr Omtata argues that there is no record that Dr Gathege ever attended the interview held by the board on January 17, that he was ‘handpicked’ by the corrupt Board Chair Ms Hannah Muriithi.
“The board abandoned a responsive recruitment process which commenced in the July 2019, and resulted in names of the top three successful candidates being presented to the Cabinet Secretary for appointment, although this was not necessary because the CS’s powers to appoint the CEO were extinguished through amendments made to the NHIF Act,” he said in the petition.
Mr Kamunyo was picked to replace Geoffrey Mwangi who was arrested and arraigned in court charged with abuse of office among other corruption charges. A Mr Nicodemus Odongo has been acting CEO of NHIF since April 2019.
Omtatah says that without cancelling the initial recruitment, the board re-advertised the position in February 2020 and changed some of eligibility requirements by deleting the expression “any other relevant business field” and replacing it with the word “medicine.”
Corruption at NHIF
https://kenyanbulletin.com/2020/04/09/new-ceo-corruption-to-continue-as-usual-at-nhif/
Activist Omtatah wants the court to quash the appointment and replace him with the person who emerged top in the first recruitment.
