The Central Organisation of Trade Union, (Cotu) has rejected a proposal by Deputy President William Ruto that top income earners pay more in monthly contributions to the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
Cotu Secretary-General Francis Atwoli said it is the duty of the government under the Bill of Rights to offer and guarantee its citizens the highest attainable standard of health, warning that 2.4 million Kenyans in formal employment will not carry the burden of ensuring that 43 million Kenyans have access to better healthcare.
According to Mr Ruto, higher fees will allow the NHIF to boost its services to the poor without hurting the fund's finances.
"In Africa the Kenyan worker remains one of the most taxed and painfully so. There has been no prudent management of these taxes from workers by either the government or the various state corporations, yet the toiling poor worker has religiously and with zeal continued to honour his or her legal obligation by allowing their payslip to be heavily taxed," said Mr Atwoli in a statement.
STATUTORY REQUIREMENT
Contribution to the NHIF is a statutory requirement.
"Cotu represents a total membership of 2.5 million workers who all form the bulk of contributors to the NHIF and until early 2015, these contributions were Sh300 per worker per month with those in the informal economy contributing Sh150 a month before Cotu and NHIF management agreed in September 2014 to withdraw a court case that had stopped this hike in contributions and allow for a review to push the contributions to up to Sh1,700 for those earning above Sh100,000 and Sh500 for the informal economy workers," added Mr Atwoli.
RECKLESS STATEMENT
He said that hardly three years since a review of the contributions was made, some individuals, unaware of what a common Kenyan worker is undergoing in terms of the harsh economic situation, is calling for yet another review of the contributions upwards.
"What a reckless, irresponsible statement that is outrightly insensitive to the suffering worker now bearing the tag of the "working poor"?," posed Mr Atwoli.
He said the union is yet to be convinced that the workers are getting equal return from NHIF.
