The Council of Governors has explained why medics working under the Universal Health Coverage program failed to receive payments for about several months.
This is after it emerged that Dr. Stephen Mogusu did not receive his pay for about five months. Mogusu succumbed to Covid 19 complication on Monday.
Since the deployment of UHC interns, county governments were left with the responsibilities of catering for their salaries.
According to CoG chair, COVID-19 disrupted services leading to undue delays in disbursement of funds to county governments, which is why some health workers are yet to receive their salaries.
CoG Chairman Wycliffe Oparanya noted that county governments are yet to receive their monthly allocation for October, November, and December. The amount equals over Sh60 billion.
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“This means salary delays unavailability of pharm and non-pharm, payment of due bills and remittance of statutory deductions among others,” he said in a statement.
However, according to Governor Oparanya, only two counties have not paid their November salaries.
He said the other counties have had to take bank overdrafts to ensure that salaries are paid on time even though this cannot cover statutory remittances because of their huge monetary implications.
Oparanya called on healthcare workers to understand the prevailing circumstances and lend their support in fighting the pandemic.
“Most of the issues raised by the unions are specific to certain counties and therefore not all. We urge the health workers’ union to resolve the issues with the concerned counties,” he added.
The council boss further called on governors to meet with county health workers unions and discuss their grievances to resolve any outstanding issues amicably.
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