The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (@Kemsa_Kenya) has been left holding on to medical supplies worth Sh. 6 billion that it cannot move because they were bought at inflated prices in the guise of fighting Covid-19.
The agency now claims that it is broke and is asking the government for a Sh. 5 billion bailout, even as it emerged that it cannot account for Sh. 17 billion allocated to it for the first financial year.
Two major foreign donors at the Ministry of Health have threatened to withdraw funding due to rampant graft.
A @Kemsa_Kenya board meeting held on Wednesday revealed that the agency's operations could grind to a halt unless the government offers to bail it out.
Sources said that the agency intends to ask the government to allow it to sell off some items procured to fight the coronavirus in order to stay afloat.
An ongoing audit has already found out that the agency has atleast 10 items worth Sh. 6,397,034,383 that could have been bought for Sh. 3,407,512,070.
The agency now wants to sell them at a lower value of Sh. 4,097,523,208 as it awaits for a cash bail out. If the government agrees to @Kemsa_Kenya's request, taxpayers stand to lose Sh. 1,926,841,075.
The @dailynation is aware that this absurd request is likely to reach Health CS Mutahi Kagwe today morning.
The United States Agency for International Development (@USAID) and The Global Fund (@GlobalFund) have raised the red flag over how @Kemsa_Kenya has been spending their money.
The two agencies have informed audit firm PriceWater-HouseCoopers (@PwC) to follow up on a number of audit queries raised by their own investigations on @Kemsa_Kenya.
@USAID is run by the United States government while @GlobalFund is a multi-stakeholder organisation.
It has also emerged that @Kemsa_Kenya was only allowed to spend Sh. 758 million during the first phase of financing to fight Covid-19.
The agency's management was however so overzealous that it overshot its expenditure to Sh. 4.6 billion then to Sh. 9 billion.
What is even more dumb founding is that all this money was given by the World Bank (@WorldBank) to assist Kenya to fight Covid-19.
Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache wrote to suspended @Kemsa_Kenya chief executive Jonah Manjari on April 15: "This is to approve the procurement of goods worth Sh. 758,690,583 as outlined in the attached annex. Disregard all requests made in relation to Covid-19."
How the expenditure grew from an initially approved Sh.758 million to over Sh.9 billion is one of the questions auditors and detectives from the @EACCKenya are trying to find answers to.
@Kemsa_Kenya managers at some point tried to bypass the Health ministry and get Sh. 5 billion directly from Treasury. 
Sources said that this plan failed after bureaucrats at Treasury noticed and told the ministry to out its house in order.
Yesterday, Deputy President William Ruto waded into the mess at the Health Ministry, seemingly chastising a government where he is the second in command.
"At least for once it won't be possible to be blamed for what someone said "started in Wuhan as a virus, landed in Italy as a pandemic and now in Kenya as a multi-billion corruption enterprise," tweeted the DP
The scandal has already claimed its first casualties. Last Friday, @Kemsa_Kenya board sent home its chief executive, Dr. Jonah Manjari. Also suspended alongside the CEO are directors Eliud Muriithi (Commercial) and Charles Juma (Procurement).
