When the Social Health Authority (SHA) quietly pulled down a payment list from its website earlier this month, it sparked more questions than answers. The list, which detailed hospital claims worth KSh 11.4 billion disbursed over just three months, was supposed to demonstrate transparency in the new health insurance scheme. Instead, its disappearance has deepened suspicion about how the agency is managing public funds.
SHA Acting CEO Robert Ingasira defended the decision, saying criminals had downloaded the list, altered it, and used it to con hospitals. Fraudsters, according to the authority, were posing as middlemen who could “speed up” claims processing for a fee. “We had to pull it down to protect hospitals from being swindled,” SHA said in a statement.
At the same time, the Kenya Master Health Facility Registry (KMHFR) was also disabled. This online database contained crucial information about hospitals across the country, including their physical addresses, bed capacities, and regulatory approvals. For years, the registry had been a public resource that patients, regulators, and insurers could use to verify facilities. Now, it too is offline.
The double takedown has rattled the health sector.
Transparency vs. Secrecy
The Rural and Urban Private Hospitals Association of Kenya (RUPHA) has accused the Ministry of Health of deliberately shutting down systems that expose inefficiencies and possible corruption.
“The registry is a public tool. By pulling it down, the ministry is not only limiting access to information, but it is also admitting it has no control over its own regulators,” said Dr Brian Lishenga, the chairperson of RUPHA.
RUPHA argues that the registry is the same platform the ministry uses to contract hospitals. Without it, Kenyans have no way of confirming which facilities are accredited, or whether hospitals being paid billions in claims even exist.
For the association, the move smells like a cover-up. They have threatened legal action and mass protests unless both platforms are restored.
A Reform in Trouble
SHA was launched in October 2024 to replace the scandal-plagued National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). The new agency was created under the Social Health Insurance Act of 2023 and was billed as a clean start. Within its first three months, SHA announced that it had paid out more than KSh 11 billion in claims to public, private, and faith-based hospitals.
But optimism quickly gave way to doubts. Reports surfaced of ghost facilities, hospitals with Level 4 classification but no beds, and clinics operating from kiosks that were still listed as eligible providers. In August 2025, the Ministry of Health suspended more than 40 facilities after uncovering fraudulent claims that included billing for patients who never existed and grossly inflated invoices.
This is the backdrop against which the payment list and registry were taken down. For critics, it confirms long-standing fears that the government is struggling to control fraud in the new system.
The Cost of Weak Oversight
At the center of the storm is the role of regulators like the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC). Budget cuts and limited staff have undermined their ability to verify facilities, leaving gaps that dishonest hospitals have been quick to exploit.
RUPHA has also dismissed the government’s KSh 104 billion digitisation project as “window dressing.” The initiative was marketed as a solution to fraud, but the association claims most checks are still manual, making the system vulnerable.
“When a hospital with no beds can be listed as Level 4 and receive payments, then digitisation has failed. Pulling down the registry only hides the rot instead of fixing it,” Dr Lishenga said.
What This Means for Kenyans
For ordinary citizens, these developments go beyond bureaucratic wrangles. Transparency tools that should help patients know where to seek care or confirm whether their hospital is accredited have suddenly disappeared. For hospitals, especially smaller ones, the fear of fraudsters posing as officials adds another layer of insecurity.
Most importantly, Kenyans are being asked to trust a health system that is cutting off access to the very data that proves it is working.
The SHA was created to restore faith after years of mistrust under NHIF. Its survival will depend not only on how it manages billions of shillings in claims but also on whether it can convince the public that it has nothing to hide.
Leave a Reply