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| From left: Pamela Nyaboke Marendi, Ruth Sudoi Makallah, Geoffrey Gitau Mwangi and Simon ole Kirgotty when they appeared in court on December 10, 2018. They were charged with the loss of over Sh500 million from NHIF. |
Four years later, the insurer has splashed Sh1.88 billion in streamlining its revenue streams, which documents before the NHIF board indicate is nearly five times the cost of purchasing such a software.
How was this done? Through a clever word play which saw NHIF hire a revenue collector though the tender advertisement stated that the insurer intended to buy such a software.
MANAGE PAYMENTS
From floating a tender for the provision of an integrated revenue collection system, NHIF was now awarding a contract for the provision of integrated revenue collection services.
And just like that, the winning bidder Webtribe Ltd which trades as JamboPay had bagged a deal that raked in commissions of Sh1.39 billion over four years before selling the same system to NHIF for Sh495.2 million in June this year.
Mr Kamau sent an internal memo to his boss, ICT General Manager Karingo Njoka, on January 5, 2014 with the request. Mr Njoka would push the request to NHIF’s corner office, where Samuel Ole Kirgotty occupied the big seat.
Back then, NHIF would give its banking partners access to its database. The banks would then use the database to reconcile contributions made by NHIF members.
But with the emergence of several other payment options like M-Pesa, it was necessary to find a way to manage all payments and records made by members.
A series of different committee and top-brass manager approvals would follow, leading to the controversy that has now seen 18 NHIF employees charged alongside JamboPay founders Danson Muchemi and Robert Muriithi.