The government was Sunday asked to expedite the probe into the Social Heath Authority (SHA) heist, seize and arraign the suspected mastermind.
City lawyer Danstan Omari said more should be done to arrest the wanton looting at the health scheme and other government institutions.
“This is a scandal of stupendous proportions, worse than the Anglo leasing and even the infamous Goldenberg combined,” Omari told journalists at the sidelines of a football tournament at Nyatieko in Kitutu Chache South.
The tournament was sponsored by Egesa Radio Artist John Ongeri aka Petronila Getena.
The discovery of the looting at SHA has so far led to the closure of 1000 health facilities across the country.
President William Ruto has continued to give assurance that the money would be recovered.
But speaking in Kisii Sunday, Omari said it was unfortunate some of the victims affected by the scandal have died.
“We are talking about huge money stolen from patients some of who have died as a result of this,” he said.
The call by Omari comes weeks after stunning revelations of large-scale theft running into billions of shillings from the national health scheme with much of the cash siphoned through shady health facilities.
Omari now wants the masterminds behind the heist detained and prosecuted.
“The DCI should delve deep into the system, know who, where and to who the money was wired, arrest the perpetrators and arraign them in court. There should be no sacred cow in this,” he said.
“If you steal money meant for roads, it can be recovered and later the road repaired but it you steal from patients, the victims end up in mortuary.H ow shall we return life that has been lost?”
Speaking separately in Siaya Sunday, Ruto warned that no public funds will be released to hospitals without proper verification.
He said corruption in hospitals will no longer be tolerated under the government’s digital tracking systems.
The saga at the SHA digital system, he stated, has enabled the government to detect long-standing fraud in hospitals under the defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
He said hospitals opposing verification are essentially trying to protect corrupt practices.
“The reason why we are unearthing the theft and the corruption in hospitals is because our SHA digital system is able to detect the fraud that people have carried out for many years under NHIF.”
“Why do we have Sh30 billion NHIF debt? When we say let us verify that debt, hospitals go to court saying they don’t want verification because they know there is theft. We are not going to pay until we verify, because we are not going to spend public money to pay corrupt people,” he said.
In Kisii, Omari said the graft at SHA was the work of cartels.
“What has come out is that cartels have been siphoning money to those hospitals.”
“It is very unfortunate that the government had abolished the National Health Insurance Fund for the Social Health Authority for the explanation then that there was massive corruption, services to Kenyans who were dying, women who were giving birth were dying in maternity wards because of lack of facilities,” he said.
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