The Social Health Authority (SHA), Kenya's flagship initiative for Universal Health Coverage (UHC), has been embroiled in a multi-billion-shilling fraud scandal since mid-2025.
Allegations include ghost hospitals, inflated billing, falsified records, and phantom claims totaling over Sh10.6 billion in rejected payouts.
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has been at the forefront of addressing the crisis, issuing stern warnings, initiating investigations, and defending the system's integrity.
This report chronicles Duale's key statements, actions, and vows amid calls for his resignation, drawing from public briefings, social media posts, and media coverage as of September 28, 2025.
Launched in October 2024 to replace the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), SHA aims to provide equitable healthcare through digitized claims processing under the TaifaCare platform.
However, forensic audits revealed systemic fraud: facilities converting outpatient visits to inpatient claims, billing for non-existent services, and colluding with providers to exploit pre-authorization loopholes.
A whistleblower's exposure of multi-billion billing irregularities led to the job loss of the informant, highlighting internal resistance.
Over 1,300 facilities have been implicated, with Sh58 billion disbursed legitimately in the first 10 months, but fraud threatening public trust.
Duale has positioned the scandal as a legacy of NHIF-era cartels resisting reforms, emphasizing SHA's AI-powered fraud detection as a bulwark against recurrence.
The report by Citizen TV on the dire state of maternal health services in our facilities is a wake-up call we cannot ignore.
While it exposes heartbreaking gaps in care, I assure every Kenyan mother that my Ministry is deploying immediate resources, skilled attendants, and targeted reforms to eradicate preventable deaths.
No woman should lose her life bringing new life into this world we are acting with urgency to ensure quality, accessible services for all.
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