Health Cabinet Secretary, Aden Duale has waded into the controversial awarding of the Sh104 billion tender for the construction of the country’s digital health system, saying the regulations he has gazetted for the implementation of the platform are for the good of the country.

“Our interest is the people of Kenya,” he said yesterday in response to reports appearing in some sections of the local dailies depicting the gazettement of the regulations as a platform for cartels to pocket the billions of shillings paid to the Social Health Authority (SHA) by Kenyan patients.

In his measured response yesterday morning, Duale – who has been christened “The Bulldozer” – is seeing the hand of the marauding cartels at Afya House, saying that will not stop him from unearthing the ring of unscrupulous traders who have tentacles at the Ministry of Health.

“They can use media houses. They can use other things, and they can even put my photo and the president and my pieces on the headlines, but I will not be deterred to deliver on the people of Kenya affordable, accessible, and equal health care,” he stated.

While responding to the media reports, Duale took the opportunity to give a chronology of events that led to the development of the regulations in question and the reason why the Safaricom-led consortium was given the tender to develop the system.

Integrated system

He said the law in the Health Act of 2017, mandates the government on the digitisation of the health sector. However, this had taken an unnecessary long period to be actualised.

Duale was speaking during the inauguration of a committee to oversee investigations into organ transplant and trade in Kenya. The CS said the digital health system should have been in place in the year 2020 as per the law, meaning that it was long overdue.

This Act, the CS said was successfully enacted in the floor of the House when he was then Majority Leader in the National Assembly, allowing him as the holder of that position to champion for its passage.

“In October of 2023, the Digital Health Act No. 5 of 2023 was passed by Parliament, and what did it do?” he posed and responded that it provided the framework for the provision of the digitisation of all our health services.

Duale said the comprehensive, integrated healthcare management information system owned by the Ministry of Health, through its Digital Health Agency, is comprised of 38 systems, where SHA manages only two- the Insurance Management Information System (IMIS), and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

To operationalise the Digital Health Act, Duale said he was mandated by law, in consultation with the Digital Health Agency, county governments, and other stakeholders, including regulators, to develop a regulation.

“I took to Parliament that regulation, two of them. I did pre-publication, the public participation, after I did the first public participation with the council of government and stakeholders, the Attorney General’s Office did the pre-publication scrutiny,” he narrated.

He said the Parliamentary Committee on Delegation for the Senate and the National Assembly also did the pre-publication scrutiny.
The CS also pointed out that he appeared before those committees more than two times, and expressed his excitement that the regulations were approved by Parliament last week.

“I have the letter from both clerks of the houses. It’s now law, and the Digital Health Agency will now use those regulations to do what is supposed to be done,” he said, noting that for more information, the CS and his team at the Ministry of Health will bring back the confidence and the trust of the people of Kenya to the health system.

The CS was speaking when he inaugurated the independent investigative committee on tissue and organ transplant services in Kenya, following a Gazette Notice dated April 23, 2025 at Afya House Nairobi.

The investigative committee, chaired by Prof Elizabeth Bukusi seeks to bring order to the health sector after a public uproar in deeply troubling allegations in the organ transplant malpractice and ethical breaches at Mediheal Group of Hospitals.

“This is a moment of reckoning, we are not just doing an investigation, we are building the trust and confidence of the public sector in the health system. We will not entertain impunity, we will not shield any wrong doing,” the CS told the committee while expressing his confident in them and urged them to uphold integrity, discretion transparency and high level professionalism in the execution of their mandate.

The CS said that’s why the Prof Elizabeth Bukusi-led committee, he inaugurated yesterday is important to the government and country.

Medical Services PS Dr Ouma Oluga tasked the committee to conduct their assignment objectively and impartially and submit a report that informs clinical workflows across all clinical services in Kenya.

“We will act decisively, transparently and to the best interest of the people of Kenya,” the CS insisted, reminding the committee to submit a comprehensive report of their investigation by July 22, 2025 and assured them of the ministry’s support to the committee.

Duale was joined at the brief inauguration by Principal Secretaries Ouma Oluga (Medical Services) and Ms Mary Muthoni (Public Health) and DG Health Dr Patrick Amoth.