Looming health crisis as IFMIS system breaks down

Patients will not be able to access drugs in Nyeri by mid-next week following the breakdown of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), a government payment module.

This has affected payment of drugs suppliers, Nyeri County Health Services Executive Secretary Dr Charles Githinji has said.

Dr Githinji said they cannot use their passwords to access the IFMIS, e-procurement system because it is down.

“We have a challenge in paying our suppliers using IFMIS. The system is down in terms of passwords, we are unable to process the payments for medicines to our suppliers like Kemsa and others to restock our institutions with drugs,” said Dr Githinji.

The county health official added: “We gave them the orders, processed them and they are awaiting for us to pay so that they can deliver. Officers in both finance and health departments processing the pay are unable to process the pay because their passwords are down.”

Dr Githinji said attempts and efforts to have them rectified by the National Treasury are yet to be fruitful.

“We tried to call the IFMIS section and they have not yet solved this problem. If this problem persists to next week, the likelihood is that by the time suppliers’ close for holidays on December 15 they won’t have delivered the supplies of drugs into county’s health institutions,” he said.

This will trigger a health crisis during the festive season since the health facilities have no enough drugs to run them until when the suppliers re-open in January.

“This is a real challenge and it requires intervention at the National Treasury (IFMIS) section level and they must act speedily,” said Dr Githinji.

In September, Council of Governors (CoG) said there is no adequate infrastructure for e-procurement in counties to allow such systems to be used countrywide.

CoG chairman Peter Munya said most counties were left behind during the earlier regimes adding that there was no preparedness and readiness to start using the systems when the government enforced them.

The Council suggested that the national government should suspend the order until proper infrastructure is established.

In August, the national government rolled out IFMIS, e-procurement throughout the country to serve Kenyans effectively on issues relating to public procurement.

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich said the IFMIS e-Procurement module will also enhance transparency and accountability in procurement process from procurement planning, requisition, sourcing, and to payment.

The National Treasury is mandated by Section 12 (1) (e) of the Public Finance Management Act (2012) to design and prescribe an efficient financial management system for the national and county governments which will also ensure transparent financial management and standard financial reporting.