NHIF payments..

I went to a clinic today where they accept our NHIF cards. After I gave my card to the receptionist, she checked if my payment was up to date.

After a few moments, she came back to me and very politely told me to please update my payments on it as it showed a very low balance!

I informed her that my payment to NHIF was fully paid up to at least April 2017. She insisted that the card did not show this and that to get in touch with NHIF immediately and inform them of this fact.

This I did as soon as I got back home. One of their numbers was not being answered, so I tried another (all of them in Nairobi as the Mombasa ones are NEVER answered!). It was answered quite fast, but, after I told the receptionist about my problem, she put me on hold for over 2 minutes and never got back to me, so I hung up.

I tried the same number after a few minutes and again it was answered immediately and the person at the other end asked me my problem which I related. She then asked for my ID number and mobile number both of which I supplied. I was told to hang up and wait for somebody to call me on the number I had given her and would not share any more details. All very mysterious. 

The above calls and conversation took place at about 3.00 pm. It is now past 5.30 pm, but nobody has called me from NHIF and I do not believe that they will.

Lots of questions started swirling in my head immediately that the clinic had told me about my NHIF card showing some very strange amount on it.

1. I have never used the card since I got it early last year, so how come it did not show ALL of the amount I've been paying them all this time?

2. What is it supposed to show anyway?

3. Since they have not been updating my card efficiently and keeping track of my payments, what happens if and when, I am so ill that I cannot show the clinic or the hospital where I am admitted the proof of payment via Mpesa on my phone? What will the medical institution do when my card does not show all these payments?

4. Why, when I  called NHIF Nairobi regarding my card update, did the receptionist behave in the way she did?

5. Why haven't I still heard from them, yet? And will I ever do....?! 

6. So now, what happens?

All the above thoughts are still going through my mind and which also make me very angry. Angry at our so-called institutions whom we pay through our collective noses, but get NOTHING in return. Total unaccountability and irresponsible attitude.

Yet, just this morning we read that the poor medical personnel who have been trying to get justice, have been trashed and told arrogantly to return to work or else become jobless.

Is it any wonder that we are seriously suffering a braindrain in this country? Everybody who can and have the opportunity are leaving. It's pathetic.

How come the citizens who are paying our useless politicians who do the least amount of work, but have awarded themselves obscene amounts of remuneration, were told by their employers (us Kenyans), that we will stop paying them a cent till they do some honest amount of work on OUR BEHALF, for once?!

Let us see, if they like it? Maybe, then they will understand the Medics' plight.

All this is connected with our NHIF payments. Where is the money going?

I  need answers, pronto!

Fwd: KENYAN FINANCIAL PUBLIC UNACCOUNTABILITY continues UNABATED(sic):--------"Kulla MATUNDA ya UHURU!"

Another example of thuggery in high places.... Unaccountability, irresponsibility and mismanagement seems to be a disease that EVERY government that takes office seems to suffer from.

Why make the citizens suffer for these crooked politicians?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SHAILEEN

Sh338 billion of last Budget unaccounted for, report shows

Updated Wednesday, October 9th 2013 at 00:00 GMT +3

0
inShare

GLANCE FACTS

We were very frustrated by their (accounting officers) deliberate efforts to deny us information — Edward Ouko, Auditor General
 

The refurbished Migori County Governors office. [PHOTO: TITUS MUNALA/STANDARD]

By LILLIAN KIARIE
KENYA: Over Sh338 billion of the total government expenditure for 2011/2012 was unaccounted for even as the State struggles to raise fresh revenue through new measures like VAT.
Only 6 per cent of the Sh920 billion that the government spent (Sh55.2 billion) was fully accounted for, according to a new report released by the Auditor General Tuesday.
The damning report indicates that a further Sh561 billion lacked adequate supporting documents, highlighting the shocking loopholes that lead to the misuse of government funds.
Auditor-General Edward Ouko said about a third of the 252 financial statements of institutions he audited were either deliberately misstated or revealed fraudulent expenditure.
"We were very frustrated by their deliberate efforts to deny us information," Mr Ouko said, referring to the accounting officers' failure to provide documents to support their expenses.
Other expenditures were not authorised, he added.
The massive loss of government funds brings into focus a cash-strained government that is struggling to meet its most basic obligations including healthcare, food security and salaries for its workers. In the current year, for instance, the government widened the 16 per cent VAT net to cover a host of consumer products in a bid to raise additional revenue, which saw the price of basic commodities skyrocket.
Mr Ouko identified malpractices in government as absence of proof of payment, over-expenditure, unpaid bills and unaccounted for imprests by government employees.
Five government ministries spent Sh7 billion without parliamentary approval under recurrent expenditure. This is 20 times more compared to the figure recorded in the 2010/2011 financial year.
The Ministry of Education once again found itself under the spotlight of irregular spending after spending Sh5.5 billion on the free primary and secondary school programmes without parliamentary approval.
Plagued by scandals

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MAMA NGINA DRIVE MOMBASA & ENVIRONS STATUS.

Yes, it's really pathetic the way our 'officialdom doesn't' work, isn't it?!!!!

Just to make this a public awareness issue, I'm going to post this on FB's - Mombasa Traffic Expose....

Btw, had you read sometime back in a local daily that Eldoret Council has and is applying the law regarding these monsters (like in Msa), love driving at breakneck speeds through town as well as loved parking overnight at various places within town, too? They are no longer allowed to park within town overnight.

I think Msa's Council should also do the same and in our case since our roads are extremely narrow and unkempt as they are without 'help' from continuous misuse by these heavy vehicles, they should be banned completely from Mombasa's CBD and environs.

There was a time when these were not allowed at all within these areas, but, that is no longer the case and NOBODY applies the law with the result that these things cause traffic jams, spoil the roads and are a nuisance in general.

On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM, SHAILEEN wrote:

Hello

Mr.Tubmun Otieno, and  Mr.Omukata,

Town Clerk,MMC                   PTO,COAST

Mombasa.         

As per my various txt messages and calls the following pertinent points have to be investigated and SOLUTIONS put in place ASAP:

1.The Street lights SWITCHED ON during daytimes:WHAT a WASTE of the RATE PAYERS monies.

2.ALL The above shud be examined,repaired & kept FUNCTIONAL!

3.PLASTIC WASTE strewn ALL over!WHY?

4.Matatu’s and TUKTUKs ‘speeding’ on the drive @speeds exceeding 50KPH while a SPEEDLIMIT board points out a speed limit of 20KPH.

5.Storm Drains COVERS stolen and not replaced with plastic ones.

6.COMMERCIAL TRUCKS parked on road sides thru out MOMBASA.  

7.Drivers of PSV and commercial Lorries are the biggest TRAFFIC OFFENDERS and playing with WANANCHI’s LIVES!

And i could go on on,ON with the malaise in MOMBASA and its surrounding areas.

Just a reminder: On 12.12.2012 we will be 49 years OLD as a  INDEPENDANT KENYA,and examine/observe our WORK ETHIC with EFFICIENCY in ALL PUBLIC ‘SERVANTS’!!!!!!!

ARE WE CAPABLE of MANAGING our COUNTRY for the benefit of ALL KENYAN’s???????/

A BORN KENYAN always expecting HIGHER EFFECIENCY in our PUBLIC SERVANTS.

Mr.Shaileen NPN Shah,B.Sc.Pharmacy(Hons)

KENYA @ 48: Any reason to CELEBRATE?

What a well analysed and written piece. I really relate to it, but, it is now 49 years. 

Unfortunately, things are still the same...., or worse!

Raziya

Kenya turned Forty eight on 12th December 2011. Forty eight months following the 2007/2008 post-election violence, I still live in the camps, internally displaced in my own country with my child of four years and nine months. Forty eight years after independence life expectancy is at a 'high' of 48, yet the economist holed up in the treasury tells me that the growth rate is at a mere 4.8 percent per annum. They attribute this to ignorance, poverty and disease.

Forty eight years on, it is politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice. They continue destroying my country, my destiny.

Forty eight years on, we have created wealth and can proudly boast of 48 billionaires. What an achievement, yet 48 percent of the country lives under a dollar a day. We are rained on as they reign in on us.

At 48, many Kenyan citizens are jobless, homeless and hopeless yet the government spends not less than 480 million shillings for nationwide celebrations on this 'auspicious occasion.' They filled their bellies with tea at eight in readiness to address a hungry nation. A quick count showed not less than 48 fuel guzzlers parked around the dais for the forty million or so Kenyans to see and drool.

At 48, 4.8 million of us still live under the permanent threat of hunger as the government does 'all it can' to avert this crisis which has now become an 'annual event.' 

Corporates  join the fray to milk us under the guise of 'Kenyans For Kenya.' You pay to feed your own countrymen and women and they take the credit the same way soldiers fight the battle and the general wins the war!

Forty eight years ago, we vowed to fight ignorance, poverty and disease. 48 years later, it is a hungry nation, a poor people, a dying generation, a country on permanent 'strike' mode. If it is not the teachers, it is the lecturers and if not them, it is the nurses and doctors.

48 years on, you ask them to pay taxes and they say they spend their monies to feed, clothe and bury you. They say they have loans to service, will not afford to put a meal on the table and worse still will not serve you better. They forget that the majority live from hand to mouth. The populist will queue at the tax collector's office, pay his tax and go back to collect his refund from parliament - what a pity. How easily we get fooled. How fast we forget.

Forty eight years on, Dedan Kimathi's remains still lie somewhere; we still do not know who killed Tom Mboya, Robert Ouko, Ronald Ngala, Pinto, JM Kariuki and others. Only in death do we realise we had heroes and heroines who lived and dwelt among us. Only in death do we honour them either by affording them state funerals, erecting monuments, buying expensive caskets, turning out in large numbers to display our largesse, and lately a new trend has emerged where we build houses for their widows and 'invite' the press during the grandiose opening, to appease the spirits.

Theodore Roosevelt said: It is emphatic that it is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Martin Luther tells me that human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. 

That change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. We must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.

A man cannot ride you unless your back is bent.

Lincoln said that the probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. And lately, Obama told me that we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. 

If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

Forty eight years on, I have no reason to find my way to the stadia, listen to radio or watch television to be treated to the usual song and dance, fanfare, parades, jets, display of armoury and military 'might' - the promise of a growing and working nation...'my government this, my government that'. 

Not this time round. Maybe never.

I lit up 48 candles in remembrance of bad leadership, ethnicity, corruption, insecurity, greed, poverty, inequality, historical injustices, vengeance, disease, hatred, discrimination, extrajudicial killings, unemployment, marginalisation and a host of other evils meted against the innocent people of Kenya.

For 48 minutes and 48 seconds, I was silent as I reflected on the intentions of the devious architects behind the unwarranted cost of living who have stolen, killed and destroyed my country. 

In the 49th minute I lit a candle to burn them down and blow them away, once and for all.

For 48 hours, 48 minutes and 48 seconds, I engaged in an act of self-sacrifice. I held vigil with progressive brothers and sisters. We denied ourselves food and drink. We straightened our backs so that they do not ride on us again.

The bad men combined 48 years ago; we, the good, must associate now; else we will fall one by one, a defeated generation in a contemptible struggle,

Forty eight years later. History will judge us.

We must be guided by the voice of our conscience.

We need a new Kenya, a new beginning, a new hope, a new future. God Bless Kenya.

By Jeremiah Kiwoi
The author  jkiwoi@gmail.com<mailto:jkiwoi@gmail.com> is a Rights Advocate based in Nairobi.

My experiences at our Immigration offices, today

1. I went with the duly filled and signed forms that I had downloaded from our Immigration website and printed from the Internet. But, the receiving official at the Customer Care desk refused to accept them saying that I HAD to get the forms (they are/were no different from the ones I had printed and filled), from them (by force?!), and was compelled to fill them up, yet, again.

2. When I objected, a whole lot of 'immigration officials' suddenly materialized and started using threatening tactics by telling me to leave and not make noise or they would call the askari!

3. Due to all this hullabaloo, time was wasted and despite filling up 'their' form, again, they would not continue with the processing as it was, now, their lunch time. They told me to go and come back at 2.00 pm.

If, downloading, printing and filling these forms from the Immigration website is not acceptable to your immigration 'officers', why make this allowance on the web page?

Is this some kind of racket to force us to pay the extra 40/-? If so, why?

Since I am disabled, why aren't these 'officers' sensitized about dealing with such as well as the old and the sick?

I ended up forcefully sitting there till 2.00 pm when the only sympathizing person there called Naomi, promptly dealt with my forms and I was out of there around 2.30 pm. I had ended up sitting there for over 2 hours!

Now, our GoK, claims that their offices are 'e-govt'. If so, why this attitude from their 'employees'? They, like our Municipal Council, might be having computers, etc., but haven't started using them to their full potential. And they might as well be living in pre-computer days and not in the 21st Century and in the process neither the attitude of these 'officials' nor their thinking has changed an iota, unfortunately.

Please, help,