Revealed: Why KEMSA bosses and PS were sacked.
The fired general secretary Josephine Mburu and the boss of the Medicines Supply Authority in the country (Kemsa) Terry Ramadhani falsified the details of the International Fund for the tender of durable mosquito nets, according to documents from the organization.
According to the documents, the two officials who were among the eight sacked by President William Ruto on Monday, hijacked the process and did not follow the guidelines of the fund.
On January 31, Kemsa announced a tender with a deadline of February 23, but this was extended by 14 days following an order from Dr Mburu to Ms Ramadhani. Dr. Mburu said that the tender had no special features compared to the previous information provided by the Ministry of Health’s National Malaria Control Program Department.

“The classification, the placement of drugs in the technology, does not require joint nets of piperonyl butoxide (PBO), which is not in accordance with the information shared by MOH-DNMP,” he said. Ms. Ramadhani extended the tender period to provide a chance for clarification and modification of the offer.
According to the letter from the Coordinator of the Global Fund Simon Kibia to Mrs. Ramadan of February 24, the long-lasting nets purchased by the International Fund are pyrethroid LLINs, so the PBO requirements should not have been part of the technical specification.
“The PBO LLNI requirements have been waived as the LLNIs to be procured are pyrethroid LLNIs. Before the publication of the tender, the document was submitted to the GF for review. Comments were shared. The purpose of this letter is to request you to proceed with the procurement as approved by the Global Fund,” Kibia wrote a day after but Kemsa did not follow the instructions of the Global Fund.
However, what is not clear is why the entire board of Kemsa was brought back home and yet the procurement and bidding process took place even though they had not taken office. They were appointed in March 2023.
Internal documents seen by Sambazanews show that the only company that met all the conditions, the Chinese company Tianjin Yorkool, was unfairly singled out in the evaluation of the offers.
The documents further show that Ms Ramadhani appointed four people – Martin Wamwea, Lenson Kariuki, Anthony Chege and Cosmas Rotich – to the tender evaluation committee.