NHIF Employees Encouraged to Reapply for Jobs in New Agency

Employees of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) will be obliged to reapply for positions when the 57-year-old State institution is divided into three units as part of planned reforms to make it more efficient.

In the transitional terms of the Social Health Insurance Bill 2023, which proposes to abolish NHIF and form a Social Health Authority to handle three funds, it is stated that the new Authority will take over all NHIF assets but will only absorb its staff based on merit.

NHIF employees who want to work for the Social Health Authority, which will oversee three funds—the primary healthcare fund, the healthcare fund, and the emergency, chronic, and critical disease fund—will have to reapply.

“The board of the Social Health Authority — shall competitively recruit and appoint its staff —- subject to the approved staff establishment and on such terms and conditions of service as may be determined by the board,” reads the bill in part. “The staff of the Fund [NHIF] are eligible to apply for the positions advertised by the authority and may be considered for appointment where they are suitably qualified for the positions advertised.”

NHIF has over 1,800 employees and it is not clear what will be the staff size of the three funds that will succeed it if the bill is passed into law. According to the Bill, NHIF employees who are not nominated by the authority must either resign or be redeployed elsewhere.

The three monies will be used by the government to conduct the Universal Healthcare (UHC) initiative, which aims to provide inexpensive healthcare to all Kenyans.