Kemsa Appoints John Kabuchi as Acting CEO

The Board of Directors at Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) has appointed John Kabuchi as the new Acting Chief Executive Officer effective December 28.

Kabuchi, who has been the procurement manager for donor-funded programmes at the agency and current Chairman of the Vaccine Procurement and Logistics Committee, takes over from Edward Njoroge.  Njoroge replaced Jonah Manjari who was suspended in March this year along with other senior directors to enable investigations into claims of corruption in Covid-19 procurements.

“Mr Kabuchi takes over from Mr Edward Njoroge whose acting ceases with immediate effect as he resumes his previous role as director, operations”, Kemsa’s Director of Human Resources and Administration Ebla Mohammed said in a memo to staff on Wednesday.

Kemsa is currently undergoing reforms following allegations of a $68.94 million scandal involving the purchase of items for use in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In October, the Agency’s board asked all non-core staff to work from home for 30 days as the military and National Youth Service (NYS) took over its operations. Kemsa also notified contractual employees that it would not renew their contracts upon lapsing.

“As part of the ongoing Kemsa reforms, we wish to notify all contractual employees as follows: 1. That all contracts will not be renewed upon lapsing as per each individual employee’s contract. The contracts which have already lapsed in the year 2021 will be renewed up to 31st December 2021,” read part of the memo to employees.