Critics blame Aden Duale for oversight lapses in widespread SHA fraud

Kenya’s Social Health Authority was introduced with the hope of fixing what the old National Health Insurance Fund had failed to deliver.

The promise was to give every Kenyan access to affordable healthcare, a system that would remove the burden of expensive treatment for families and bring dignity to public health.

But instead of living up to that promise, the Authority has quickly fallen into the same traps of corruption, fraud, and weak oversight, only this time on a much larger scale.

Billions of shillings have already been lost to fraudulent claims. Hospitals that do not exist on the ground appear in official records and receive millions.

Others inflate bills or convert simple outpatient visits into inpatient admissions to draw more money from the system.

One ghost hospital in Homa Bay County was allocated 19 million shillings without any physical presence. Another, Kandiege Sub-County Hospital, received 54 million shillings in June 2025, yet more than 40 million cannot be traced to patient care.

That fake hospitals SHA scandal is saddening man.

Tax payer money going to ghost hospitals.

We could easily have free and quality healthcare if all that money was put to good use.

It's also telling that most of the fake hospitals are in North Eastern.

— Zollz (@zollz) August 24, 2025

These are not isolated cases but part of a wider pattern where fake facilities, sometimes only existing on paper or in a phone record, drain resources that should be saving lives.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has responded by suspending facilities and warning hospital owners against defrauding the Authority.

In June and August 2025, dozens of facilities, including two public hospitals, were shut down. President William Ruto has also said that more than 1,000 medical facilities were closed for falsifying claims. But even with these measures, ghost hospitals continue to receive money.

Patients still complain that real hospitals lack drugs, beds, and equipment while billions flow into accounts of fraudulent providers.

Criticism has grown around Duale’s leadership, with many arguing that his actions are reactive and not preventive.

Questions are being raised on why so many ghost hospitals, especially in North Eastern Kenya, were registered in the first place.

Hanano Nursing Home in North Eastern allegedly received more than 4 million shillings despite lacking proof of existence.

Tumticha Hospital in Mandera was listed as a Level 3A facility with 30 beds but had none, yet it still claimed funds. SHA’s chairperson and its chief executive, both from the same region, have also been linked to approving suspicious registrations.

This has created the perception of favoritism and collusion within the ministry.

Taxpayers contribute mandatory deductions every month with the hope that when they fall sick, they will get help. Instead, their money is diverted to fake hospitals while cancer patients are turned away for lack of treatment.

Duale’s ministry has promised reforms, but repeated scandals show that the system remains open to abuse.

Just like the National Health Insurance Fund before it, the Social Health Authority has inherited the same culture of fraud, only now with a larger budget of over 100 billion shillings.

Unless accountability is enforced and real checks like physical verification of facilities are carried out, Kenyans will continue losing money while genuine healthcare needs remain unmet.

The public deserves more than suspensions and empty pledges. They deserve a system that prioritizes life over theft, where hospitals are real, drugs are available, and money is used to heal rather than enrich cartels.

Aden Duale and the SHA leadership cannot escape responsibility for the failure to safeguard these funds, and unless they fix the rot, universal healthcare will remain nothing more than a broken promise.