The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) has formed a taskforce to rebrand its image and review its procurement process, which saw it lose millions of shillings last year.

The taskforce will also evaluate the performance of their suppliers in the wake of the Covid-19 saga where the prices of medical supplies were inflated.

The authority has been in the limelight over the manner it procured Covid-19 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) with allegations billions of shillings were lost in the process.

Already, senior managers from the authority have been sent home while traders involved in the procurement of the medical supplies are under investigation.

Reforms process

According to the acting chief executive officer Edward Njoroge the Reforms Implementation Committee (KRIC) that is spearheading the process has been instituted to provide guidance and oversight in the implementation of proposed reforms.

Njoroge noted that some of the reforms that they were keen on included reviewing their procurement process to be in line with the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015.

“We are reviewing suppliers’ performance to measure quality and consistent pricing to eliminate suppliers who fail to comply with performance requirements,” he said.

He added that Kemsa had made huge investments in automating all its business processes to ensure that counties medical orders were received and processed on time.

“This has been made possible by the new and improved Logistics Information Management System thus enabling Kemsa to inject efficiency in the supply chain service,” he said.

Speaking at the end of the two-day workshop for County Pharmacists in Naivasha, Njoroge said that they were keen to reduce time taken to deliver medical supplies to counties.

“The authority has put in great efforts in ensuring accessibility of medical commodities by lowering the cost of healthcare, increasing access to healthcare services and improving national healthcare outcomes,” he said.

He added that under the ongoing reforms, the Order Turnaround Time would be reduced from 16 days to seven days for rural health facilities and nine days to three days for urban hospitals by the end of July.