Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has stated that National Government Administration Officers (NGAO) will successfully deliver the target of 12 million Kenyans in the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme. Speaking on Wednesday, Kindiki expressed confidence that no other state machinery could execute this task more efficiently than NGAO.
“We have a national reach from Nairobi, the headquarters to regions all the way to the villages. We have approximately 106,000 Village Elders, over 9,000 Assistant Chiefs, and about 4,000 Chiefs… there is no other Government machinery that can deliver the UHC efficiently, fast, effectively, and at minimal cost,” he asserted.
Data from the Ministry of Interior indicates that Kenya is divided into eight regions, encompassing 47 counties, 389 subcounties, 989 divisions, 3,999 locations, and 9,104 sublocations. Kindiki made these remarks during a collaborative meeting on UHC involving his ministry and the Ministry of Health.
Present at the meeting were Health CS Deborah Barasa, senior staff from her ministry, and senior NGAO officials. Kindiki also conveyed his confidence that the NGAO team would deliver results, similar to their success during the farmer registration drive that facilitated the distribution of subsidized fertilizer.
“I am persuaded that just like we supported and delivered in the registration of farmers for the subsidized fertilizer programme, where we enrolled over 6.5 million farmers in record time and saved the country billions of shillings proposed by consultants, we will deliver in the UHC registration in record time and at minimal cost to the government of Kenya,” Kindiki said.
He noted that this exercise would be conducted in collaboration with officials from the Ministry of Health, particularly the Community Health Promoters (CHPs). The Interior CS emphasized the need for clear and simplified messages from the Ministry of Health that can be easily understood by people in the villages.
“What we require from this meeting is very simplified information which can be consumed by the person at the grassroots,” he stated. Kindiki expressed strong confidence that this time around, the programme would succeed after previous administrations’ failures to roll it out.
He added that the work of the National Government Administration officers is to support the government agenda at the grassroots across all functions of government.
According to CS Barasa all the work that has been put into this programme will be meaningless if people at the grassroots don’t know about them.
She said it is the reason the Health ministry is tapping into the expertise of the NGAO officers.
“The reason we are here today is because of the tremendous experience, good connections, the prompt sensitisation you have been able to do at the community level.
“We really need your expertise. We need to leverage on your platform to sensitise and inform the community on the benefits, and register to get affordable and quality healthcare,” Barasa said.
