Amnesty for domestic workers’ bosses sought

National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) is seeking an approval from the board to extend an amnesty period that had been granted to employers of domestic workers to comply with provisions of the NHIF Act.

The month long amnesty period that was issued by the national health insurer in the month of December last year targeted small scale employers (where domestic employers fall) who according to NHIF constitute majority of employers who have not yet declared their employees.

Positive results

“We are proposing to extend the amnesty period by another month because of the positive results we have seen so far. However, this will not stop here as we will carry out further investigations to establish cases where employers have not complied with the Act which will attract a legal action,” said Richard Sigei, manager micro insurance and sponsored programmes at NHIF in a telephone interview.

NHIF members contribute Sh320 per month. The NHIF Act provides that employers are penalised five times the amount of monthly contribution to the fund for every non-NHIF member employee on their payroll.

Since December 12, 2011, NHIF has signed up an additional 918 small scale employers both from the formal and informal sector under the categories of wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants, public transport Saccos, domestic employers and community and social services institutions.

This brings the total number of employers signed up to the fund to 73,007.