Thursday, November 4, 2021 –Government has handed over the troubled drug agency KEMSA to the Kenya Defense Forces KDF.
Both the KDF and NYS will now take over operations at the medical supplier months after it was plunged into mismanagement woes.
This announcement was made through the agency’s chairperson Mary Chao Mwadime who also directed that all non-core staff should proceed on a 30-day leave to allow restructuring to take place.
She also stated that during this transition period, a lean team of core staff and government entities will oversee the activities.
Mary confirmed that there will be no disruptions of activities and services during this period because they had already put into consideration everything that was required.
The board recommended that KEMSA requires an urgent review in areas such as structure, governance and processes.
“This commitment includes aligning the organizational structure to industry-accepted standards for a health commodities and technologies procurement organization,” she said.
It is also recommended that the troubled agency finds a global approach that may include acceptable span of control as well as command structures that may address shortages in accountability, staffing and other norms.
Just recently, State Corporation Advisory asked the government to sack a half off the KEMSA staff which could now affect about 920 employees at once.
But even as this is going on, some sections have already raised concerns claiming the junior staff were being sacrificed for wrongs committed by their seniors who have since been retained in other capacities.