Professor, Fred Ogola, the leader of Linda Ugatuzi lobby group plans to take the government to court for retaining the bulk of health care budget at National level.
The lobby group argues that the bulk of the healthcare budget should be disbursed to the counties, where health functions have been devolved. With 65% of the healthcare budget currently retained at the national level, Prof. Ogola deems the situation ironic.
While addressing the media at a press conference held in Siaya town, Professor Ogola challenged the Kenyan president to demonstrate sincerity with Kenyans regarding his administration’s commitment to devolution.
“The national government has put 35% of the health budget to the counties yet health care is 100% devolved. How can the national government retain 65% of the budget?” he said.
He emphasized that the lobby group demands 80% of the health care budget to be allocated to the counties to enable ordinary citizens’ access quality care.
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Prof Ogola warned that if the government does not heed to their call and the parliament passes the finance bill without changes, “Operation Linda Ugatuzi” will take the matter to court.
The lobby group has identified 50 alleged illegalities in the finance bill that they claim violate the constitution.
“50 sections of the constitution have been violated by the finance bill, among them a section that calls for prudent allocation of resources” said Professor Agola.
He cited the allocation of Ksh. 350 billion shillings to projects that which he claimed had already been undertaken by the previous government, such as the digitization of ID and Huduma cards.
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