Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani has explained that the government took over the management of Kenyatta University Teaching Research and Referral Hospital from the tertiary institution.
In the latest documents tabled in Parliament, CS Yatani said the decision to turn KUTRRH into a state agency was reached after defaulting on a Sh10 billion loan from China.
At the current forex rates, the $99 million loan is estimated to be Sh11.11 billion.
“The Kenyatta University Hospital constructed through an on-lent loan has since been taken over and is being managed by the national government to recover the loan amount after non-settlement of their arrears,” reads the documents from CS Yatani.
The loan from China’s Exim Bank was signed in 2011 by President Uhuru Kenyatta who was the Minister of Finance at the time.
To ease the burden on the taxpayer, KUTRRH will utilise its revenue to pay the loan whose completion date was initially set for March 2031.
The takeover has faced resistance in some quarters, with Kenyatta University staff and students protesting that they have been denied access to the facility for their practicals.
In September, National Assembly Select Committee on Implementation recommended that the legal notice establishing KUTRRH as a parastatal be revoked.
However, the report is yet to be approved by a committee of the whole house.
“H.E the President should revoke the legal notice number 4 of 2019 and revert the Kenyatta University Teaching, Research and Referral Hospital (KUTRRH) to a university hospital within six months of the adoption of this report,” the committee recommended.