Mercy Mwangangi breaks silence amid Kenyans’ anger over SHA failures
The Social Health Authority (SHA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mercy Mwangangi, has come out guns blazing to dismiss critics of the Social Health Authority (SHA), outlining what she called successes and small challenges.
Speaking to a local TV station on Tuesday, September 16, 2025, Mwangangi defended the new health body, claiming it had already achieved what the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) failed to do in years.
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“Unlike the defunct NHIF, SHA has managed to register 26 million Kenyans. We have about 890,000 contributors in the informal sector and four million salaried contributors. That means about 4.8 million Kenyans are paying into the contributory fund,” she said.
The Health CS, Aden Duale, had earlier credited SHA for exposing fraud in the healthcare system.
SHA promises services
Mwangangi further argued that SHA was designed with ordinary Kenyans in mind, saying the new structure is built around three different funds, focusing heavily on primary healthcare.
“The design of SHA was very deliberate in that we needed to ensure that the services Kenyans needed the most, which is 85 per cent of our health needs, can be served at the primary health care level,” she added.
“Yes, SHA is working. SHA is an authority, and it has three funds within it. One of the pivotal things that the government did was to set up three funds within one.”
Mwangangi’s remarks come weeks after the government has suspended 45 health facilities across the country from accessing benefits under SHA.
Kenyans push back
But even as Mwangangi painted a glowing picture, Kenyans online and in hospitals told a different story.
In several instances, captured on various national TV channels and social media, complaints have been made that the SHA systems are down most of the time, leaving patients stranded.
The Chairperson of the National Assembly Health Committee, James Nyikal, had also raised serious concerns over systemic failures and financial irregularities in the Social Health Authority (SHA) programme, following site visits to public and private healthcare facilities.
A report by the Office of the Auditor General weeks ago revealed how ghost hospitals in various parts of the country received SHA claims payments.
The debate reached a point where the digital register provided by the government was taken down for several days.
The timing of her defence has therefore angered many who say the reality on the ground does not match her words. To them, SHA is not working, and no amount of figures can change that.
