President William Ruto has reaffirmed his commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC), defending the government’s transition to Taifa Care as a solution to the corruption that plagued the now-defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
Speaking in Kakamega during the burial of Malava MP Moses Malulu Injendi at his rural home in Lukusi village, Ruto dismissed allegations of fraud in the new system. He accused corrupt individuals of spreading misinformation to protect their financial interests.
“The noise you hear from people on social media and in the newspapers is coming from those who were stealing from us during the NHIF days. These are brokers. I saw some of them say that the government will use one hundred billion for the system,” Ruto stated.
He emphasized that NHIF was riddled with fraud, with a significant portion of funds lost to fake claims and ghost hospitals.
“We want to fix the fraud problems of the past. A lot of the money collected by NHIF was stolen by scammers and fraudsters who pretended to have hospitals. Fake claims and fraudulent claims used up almost 40% of the funds that NHIF was raising. This will not happen again as long as I am President,” he added.
Ruto assured that Taifa Care, developed by a consortium of technology companies, will eliminate fraudulent claims and enhance transparency in healthcare funding.
“The people complaining are the ones who have been stealing from us, and they don’t want a working technology system because they want to continue stealing. I want to tell them that stealing is over. MOVE ON. No public funds will be misused, no matter how many times you fill the newspapers trying to force us to go back to the old NHIF system,” he declared.
