NAIROBI, Kenya – Former Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi has raised alarm over what he termed “open thuggery” in the allocation of public health funds, after revelations that Ladnan Hospital received nearly Ksh125 million from the Social Health Authority (SHA) in just five months.
In a statement on Tuesday, Muturi questioned why the private hospital chain, and particularly its Elwak branch in Mandera County, received Ksh124.9 million between April and August 2025—an amount nearly equal to what two major referral hospitals, Kakamega and Machakos, were allocated over the same period.
Even more striking, he noted, is that Ladnan’s payout was almost double the funds disbursed to Nyeri County Referral Hospital, a major Level 5 facility.
“A private hospital in a small town cannot realistically be consuming public health funds on the same scale as entire referral hospitals serving millions,” Muturi said. “This is not an accounting anomaly, not a technical glitch, but what can only be described as open thuggery.”
Muturi accused the SHA of being “captured by private interests,” saying the scheme appeared designed to funnel taxpayer funds to politically connected hospitals at the expense of public facilities.
He contrasted the swift, sizeable payments to Ladnan with the chronic delays and shortfalls experienced by county referral hospitals.
“Patients suffer. Health workers strike. Machines break down. But Ladnan, by some miracle, appears to have payments flowing swiftly, in fat lumps. That miracle has nothing to do with merit—it has everything to do with connections,” he argued.
The former Attorney General also warned that the disproportionate allocations were undermining the constitutional principle of equity in resource distribution.
He linked the scandal directly to the suffering of patients across the country.
“Every shilling that goes to Ladnan at the expense of referral hospitals is a mother in Kakamega forced to buy medicine from a chemist. It is a cancer patient in Machakos waiting months for treatment. It is a child in Nyeri dying because the ICU has no functioning ventilator,” he said.
Muturi called on the Auditor-General, Parliament, and investigative agencies to probe the payments urgently, demanding to know who approved the transactions and what patient data justified the massive sums.
He also challenged the Ministry of Health to account for the allocations, insisting that Kenya’s universal health care goals risked collapse if the SHA became “a slush fund for politically connected cartels.”
“When health financing is captured, universal health care becomes a cruel joke,” Muturi said. “This scandal is not just about numbers. It is about life and death.”
He warned that the Ladnan case may be just “the tip of the iceberg unless Kenyans demand accountability.”
