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{
    "id": 678817,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/678817/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 251,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "There are a few things that have emerged. First of all, we have the devolved governments and the health function is devolved. In the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, there is a part that assigns duties to the county governments. What interests me is part (c) which talks about promotion of primary health care. It is costly to treat diseases in this country, especially the plague of cancer. Families are sinking all their savings into treatment. I say this because two weeks ago I lost my mother-in-law to liver cancer. It was hard for me. It is hard to get affordable treatment in this country and many Kenyans are suffering. Most Senators will agree with me that a day does not go by without getting an invitation to a harambee that deals with medical expenses. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this amendment also seeks to look at how contributors to NHIF are treated in this country. We have the standard by the Government and organizations, employees and the voluntary contribution. We know that if you are not a member of the NHIF you really suffer. The way it is structured nowadays, it really helps in tackling medical bills. However, not many Kenyans are aware that they can contribute to the NHIF and the consequences of late contribution. We are staring at a crisis in terms of unemployment in the country. We have millions of young people who are out there with no formal employment. Most probably, they will be in the voluntary contribution of NHIF. If one has a contract or employees that are covered by NHIF as required by law and delays payment by a day or two, they are charged a punitive penalty that makes them to withdraw their workers from NHIF. A penalty that is five times more is not encouraging the businesses that we are talking about. Most women and young people in the country are in private businesses because the white collar jobs are not easily available; the Government is not able to churn out as many jobs as it should. Most people are in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are lucky to host the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 14 in the country. The conference has a dedicated session to deal with the youth and women. There are hundreds of delegates from all over the country that have come to press that even as we look at the achievement of Vision 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we should have a friendly environment for business for young people and women, because they are the drivers of economies in most of the developing countries. There is a simple amendment to ensure that the penalties are made affordable. For example, if somebody is working for company ‘X’ and his or her payment is delayed, they do not have to suffer by paying five times more as an upcoming entrepreneur, so as to continue with their subscription to NHIF. The first amendment is that of Section 18 of the principle Act in sub-section (1) by deleting the words “five times” appearing immediately after the words “a penalty equal to” and inserting therefor the word “twice”. This was achieved through the public participation that we did in the Committee on Labour and Social Welfare. We involved many stakeholders in terms of the reduction of these penalties. It does not make sense that we want to encourage young people and other people to contribute to NHIF, yet by law we make it difficult to sustain the contribution. That is what informed this reduction. We should encourage more people to keep The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}