AAR’s City Hall medical cover faces opposition

Medical underwriter AAR Kenya’s bid to renew a multi-million shilling insurance cover deal for City Hall staff is facing opposition from a section of county representatives.

Mlango Kubwa MCA Patricia Mutheu has moved a motion to prompt Governor Mike Sonko to reconsider the deal with the firm and instead channel the funds towards building the capacity of county health facilities.

She faulted the county government for engaging the insurance firm to cover the more than 12,000 staff in a deal running to over Sh1 billion annually, claiming they were receiving average medical cover despite the billions being pumped into the deal.

The MCA said she wants the focus to shift instead to building capacity of local health facilities, which are reeling from congestion, lack of medicine, essential equipment and frequent strikes by medical staff.

“We want the money that we are paying the private firm to be channelled to equipping county health facilities and provision of medicine in the facilities.

“Why are we spending such colossal amounts of money on an average medical cover yet our county facilities have no medicine, no nurses and equipment?” she posed yesterday.

Ms Mutheu now wants the county Health executive to consider other alternatives like the National Hospital Insurance Fund to create a revamped and proper medical cover for employees and reduce the cost of private insurance.

“The county stands to make great savings if mechanisms can be explored for county employees to leverage their NHIF cards within a customised and enhanced framework within the county’s hospitals and dispensaries,” stated Ms Mutheu.

AAR’s tenure at City Hall has come under intense scrutiny ever since the insurer entered into a deal with ex-governor Evans Kidero’s administration in the financial year 2015/16.