Millions splashed on hospitality can buy 69 dialysis machines

Money that Nairobi, Machakos and Makueni counties have budgeted for office refreshments can buy up to 69 dialysis machines, calculations show.

Similarly, the budgets totalling Sh203 million can buy of 1.7 million packets of maize flour for thousands of families living in those counties.

The World Health Organisation estimates that one in every five men, and one in every four women aged between 65 and 74 years, have chronic kidney disease.

Most of these people, the organisation says, have no access to basic health care, let alone specialised treatment for the disease that can be fatal if not managed well and early.

In Kenya, official figures show that over 100,000 people are diagnosed with kidney disease annually, with the ever-growing need for dialysis machines that mean the difference between life and death for most of the patients.

These grim statistics become even more disturbing considering that counties, which have been given the mandate to handle all except referral hospitals and policy in the health sector, are spending millions of shillings on hospitality.

This financial year, Nairobi County has budgeted Sh98 million for hospitality, Makueni Sh64.4 million, while Machakos has the least expenditure at Sh41.4 million.

While this might look like a small amount, a comparison of what they can achieve if diverted to health and buying of dialysis machines or food security is baffling.

Counties have been under intense pressure to cut down on unnecessary expenditure that many have argued could have been diverted to better usage.

In her annual and periodic reports of county expenditure, Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo has castigated counties for what her office said was spending too much money on what does not really matter.

But in their defence, the Council of Governors said during the third devolution conference in Meru early this year that they had improved lives and increased the number of doctors from 3,000 to over 4,500, and nurses from 9,816 to 15,000 in three years.

In total, the 47 counties have spent Sh126 billion in health in three years, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Economic Survey 2016.

In the past three years, devolution has taken up in excess of Sh1 trillion that the national government has pumped into the 47 devolved units, with the majority of expenditure expected to go towards health, water, agriculture and early childhood education.

“Does the Sh1 trillion sent to the county governments reflect in what you see? Is there clean drinking water and proper sanitation, efficient garbage collection, medicines in hospitals, and agricultural extension workers visiting your farms?" Asked President Uhuru Kenyatta in his State of the Nation address to a joint sitting of Parliament on March 31.