President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday, March 9, appeared to threaten newly-sworn-in Health CS Mutahi Kagwe's job during a live televised function at Sarit Center in Nairobi.
The president was delivering a report on the success of the Universal Health Coverage rollout, which is part of his Big 4 Agenda and a key component of ensuring his legacy, piloted in four counties; Kisumu, Nyeri, Isiolo and Machakos.
He also unveiled plans to ensure that the programme was extended to the rest of the country making sure to remind the CS to ensure it stayed on course.
"We launched the pilot in December 2018 in four of our 47 counties and from what we have seen over that period and from those four counties, increased access of essential medicines to excess of 3.2 million Kenyans.
"The national roll-out of the programme to the remaining 43 counties and by extension to every Kenyan is on course or at least Mutahi, it better be," warned Uhuru leaving the audience in laughter.
He further lauded governors of ensuring that the health sector was well taken care of pointing out that county governments allocated 30% of its yearly budgets to the sector.
"I also commend the efforts made by our county governments...to improve access to healthcare systems within their respective jurisdictions and to sustain the commitment of resources towards health averaging 30% of county budgets which has seen increased recruitment of healthcare workers," stated Uhuru.
The Government of Kenya launched the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Pilot Program dubbed Afya Care – Wema Wa Mkenya in December 2018, a major step towards achieving the affordable healthcare dream.
“We are embarking on this journey in a phased manner starting with a pilot phase in the counties of Kisumu, Nyeri, Isiolo and Machakos and we expect to learn critical lessons that shall inform the rapid scale up to the rest of the country," Uhuru stated during the launch.
Kenyans were expected to acquire a UHC card which would enable them to access health services ranging from emergency Services, Child Health Services, Maternal Health Services, Mental Health Services, and Infectious Disease Management among others.
This comes months after the president fired former Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri in what he termed as underperformance in the ministry.
In October 2019, Uhuru blamed Kiunjuri over the agony of maize farmers during the Nairobi International Trade Fair where he had threatened to sack him of irregular payments.
''I swear before God, you try that again and you’ll see what will happen to you. We have seen what you did and we will follow you. Government money belongs to the people. Pay farmers first,'' stated Uhuru at the time.
CS Kagwe is in charge of the programme's rollout since he assumed office in February 2020 taking over the mantle from Sicily Kariuki.
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