Universal Health Coverage (UHC) staff in Tharaka Nithi County are now voicing their frustrations after being on a legal strike for over 150 days.
They have not been paid their salaries, are tied to poor and exploitative contracts, and feel deeply betrayed by both the county and national government, despite earlier promises that their situation would be addressed.
According to their statement, “Struggling Universal Health Coverage (UHC) staff in Tharaka Nithi County are speaking out after enduring over 150 days on legal strike, decrying withheld salaries, exploitative contracts, and what they describe as betrayal by both county and national leadership despite public promises of reform.”
While the Ministry of Health under Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has committed to handling the main concerns raised by these health workers, the response from the county government has worsened the situation instead of helping it.
CS Aden Duale has promised that the Ministry of Health will deal with the major grievances of these staff, especially matters to do with permanent employment, salary harmonization, and gratuity.
The ministry had already finished a verification and headcount exercise and had committed to solving these issues by August.
However, instead of supporting this final stage, Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki has allegedly taken a step backward by completely stopping salaries for UHC staff in the county. This has caused new tension and fear among the already frustrated workers.
What makes this more serious is the fact that Governor Njuki is not just any county head. He is the chair of the Council of Governors (CoG) Health Committee, a very influential position in decisions affecting health workers across the country.
The staff now accuse him of being aware of irregularities, such as the existence of thousands of ghost workers, yet doing nothing about it.
His past remarks suggesting that 3,000 of the 8,000 UHC workers were ghost employees were published by the Nation newspaper and later repeated by CS Duale, showing that this was not new information to him.
The UHC staff now question whether the governor deliberately kept silent about this issue and whether his move to block salaries is a way to cover up that failure or cause unnecessary chaos.
In their message, they ask for public attention and support from voices like Cyprian Nyakundi to expose the matter. They wrote, “Good afternoon Cyprian. Kindly help highlight this UHC staff matter in Tharaka Nithi County. UHC staff across all cadres have been on legal strike for over 150 days now. MOH through CS Duale has promised to solve their two major issues namely permanent placement/salary harmonization and gratuity upon completion of headcount and verification, which is already over. CS Duale has openly proclaimed that RTWF will be agreed upon this August after headcount and verification. Kindly note that this process is ongoing. On the other hand, Governor Muthomi Njuki, who’s the chair of the Health Committee COG, has orchestrated salary stoppage of UHC staff in his county. It’s key to note that this governor, who sits in a very influential committee in terms of human resources for health, has/did nothing to solve the UHC matter. Instead, he’s chosen to stop salaries for these staff who have suffered under very discriminatory salaries for over 5 years now. From his earlier pronouncements, Njuki claimed that there were about 3k ghost workers among the 8k UHC staff. This matter was published by Nation newspaper a while ago and repeated by CS Duale last week speaking on the headcount report. One wonders what this governor knew and what he did about it. Was Tharaka Nithi County Governor aware of this scandal and kept quiet about it? Is he introducing another confrontation in the form of salary stoppage in counties to try to cover up the mess already confirmed by the headcount?
The UHC staff have been on industrial action from early this year. What’s the urgency in stopping salaries when the CS Health and MOH are almost at the tail end of solving it? CS Duale has publicly said that he’s going to deal with cartels in Afya House (Mafya House).
Is the governor trying to introduce other battlegrounds to cover the mess he was aware of and did nothing? Is he trying to choke CS with more issues so as not to confront cartels? Kindly, let Tharaka Nithi Governor and COG allow CS Duale and MOH to solve this long-standing issue which they’ve been unable to solve for the last 5 years. Thank you, sir.”
This appeal highlights the depth of the crisis and how leadership failures continue to harm the lives of health workers who have spent years serving the public under difficult conditions.
The call is clear allow the Ministry of Health to finish its reforms without further political interference.
