SPEECH BY MS.

ANNE WAIGURU, OGW, CABINET SECRETARY,

MINISTRY OF DEVOLUTION AND PANNING DURING THE LAUNCH OF
CIVIL SERVANTS AND DISCIPLINED SERVICES ENHANCED BENEFITS
AT WILSON AIRPORT ON WEDNESDAY, 14th JANUARY 2015.
Your Excellency, the President and Commander In Chief of the
Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya, Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta;
Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Health, Mr James Macharia
Cabinet Secretaries Present
Principal Secretaries
Chairman, NHIF Board
Chief Executive Officers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen;

Your Excellency,
We wish to thank you for coming here today, to witness the launch of the
enhanced benefit of

Civil Servants and Disciplined Services Medical

insurance cover currently covering over two hundred and forty thousand
(240,000) staff out of which:

74,883 are national government staff,

61,585 are staff performing devolved functions seconded to the

county governments and

104, 848 are disciplined services personnel

In particular, I am excited with the provision of the emergency air rescue and
road ambulance services to the Disciplined Services, who due to the nature
of their work are in some of the remote areas of the country and therefore
likely to benefit immensely from this service. For this I would like to thank the
Ministry of Health, National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), AMREF and Red
Cross for working in collaboration with My Ministry to achieve this milestone
as part of a more comprehensive medical cover for Civil Servants and
Disciplined Services.
Your Excellency
To put this into perspective, I wish to take this opportunity to give a brief
background to the Comprehensive Medical Insurance Cover for the Civil
Servants and Disciplined Services personnel.
Prior to 1st January, 2012, Civil Servants And Disciplined Services were
drawing monthly medical allowances ranging from Kshs.375 Kshs.2, 490
which was taxed, as Outpatient Medical Cover.
The employees daily entitlement as Inpatient Medical Cover was in the range
of ksh. 1,000 to kshs.1500 per day, and the employees had to pay the bills
first and then claim reimbursement.
Where the bills were in-excess of the entitlement, an ex-gratia assistance
was granted at the discretion of the accounting officer and subject to
availability of funds. In most cases, employees were unable to access this
assistance and this caused considerable financial hardships forcing them to
resort to harambees, salary advances or loans.
Your Excellency,

In January, 2012 the government initiated the Civil Servants And Disciplined
Services, Medical Scheme as a means of meeting its obligation under the
employment act, 2007 and the provisions of the Constitution 2010- to
provide access to quality healthcare to its employees.
The government converted the existing medical benefits for Civil Servants
into a Comprehensive Medical Insurance Scheme and the National Hospital
Insurance Fund (NHIF) was contracted to administer the scheme at an initial
premium of ksh.4.32 billion per annum for a total of 216,789 Principal
Members on family shared basis.
The contract for provision of the Medical Insurance Cover between my
Ministry and NHIF is renewable on an annual basis and continuously
improved. Currently the beneficiaries have increased to cover the Principal
Member, Spouse and five (5) dependent children under twenty one (21)
years of age and up to a maximum of twenty five (25) years of age if still in
school.
In addition, the increased benefits include treatment outside the country for
medical conditions whose treatment is not available in Kenya. The scheme
also covers dependents with disability and no age limit other than proof of
registration with the National Council For Persons With Disability is required.
Your Excellency,
One of the ways of improving accessibility to this benefit is the adoption of
smart card identification which will allow members of the scheme to access
services in other hospitals. My Ministry is already in consultation with the
NHIF to make this a reality and we hope it will be achieved soon.
The ability to access the benefits in every part of the country would also
inject the much needed capital to improve the local health infrastructure

across the whole country and greatly reduce health inequalities caused by
geographical disparities.
Your Excellency,
I wish therefore, to thank you for your leadership and support which has
made all this possible. I also take this opportunity to thank all the
stakeholders for playing their part and continuously striving to improve the
scheme for better service delivery for the people of Kenya.
Thank you