80.6 per cent of members of the public have acknowledged the prevalence of corruption and unethical conduct in the health sector projects implemented in counties.
This is according to the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) report released on Wednesday on the extent of corruption and unethical conduct in healthcare projects in the counties.
According to the report, 88 per cent and 93.7 per cent of health staff and members of the public respectively admitted that corruption and unethical conduct were widespread in the health sector.
The report notes that half of the health staff (50.9 per cent) and 43.5 per cent of contractors mentioned tendering as the phase of procurement where corruption and unethical conduct were most likely to occur.
43.5 per cent of the health staff identified tender awards as the stage most plagued by corruption and unethical conduct. On the contrary, most contractors (34.1 per cent) identified tender evaluation as the stage with the highest prevalence of corruption and unethical conduct.
"66.2 per cent of the health staff indicated there was active involvement of members of the public as key stakeholders in planning and execution of healthcare projects while 78.7 per cent of members of the public refuted their active involvement by their respective counties and/ or national health facilities," the report noted.
Completion of health projects
Meru, Tharaka-Nithi and Embu counties had more healthcare projects that had been completed at costs above the planned budget.
Awareness of healthcare projects completed beyond the contract period were high in Tharaka-Nithi, Embu and Homa-Bay counties and low in Makueni, Kitui and Turkana.
Factors that contributed to late completion of projects were delayed disbursements of funds (53.4 per cent), Covid-19 pandemic (14.2 per cent), change of contract terms (10.3 per cent), change of leadership (8.3 per cent) and corruption (6.9 per cent).
Makueni, Kakamega and Nakuru counties had the highest levels of accessibility to procurement opportunities as indicated by respondents while Wajir, Garissa and Kajiado had the lowest levels.
Key reasons for projects termination were lack of capacity by contractors (16.5 per cent), contractors abandoning the project (16.5 per cent) and insufficient funds (16 per cent). On the other hand, contractors pointed out falsification of regulatory certificates, lack of financial capacity and budgetary constraints in the Ministry of Health as reasons for project termination.
Majority of health staff (64.6 per cent) acknowledged that there were instances of delayed payments to contractors. Equally, 80.7 per cent of contractors indicated that payments were delayed. In addition, 95.3 per cent of the health staff observed that there were one or more instances where payments were delayed.
