Aden Duale, the pugnacious Health Cabinet Secretary, announced at the weekend that he is preparing the right arsenal to obliterate the cartels in the ministry, salivating at the billions they can steal by providing shoddy services, overpriced and expired drugs and machines.
Duale takes no prisoners, that’s his public persona, and it is our hope that he means it when he says he has the backing of MPs, doctors and the public in his courageous mission to chop off the hydra-headed monster of corruption that permeates every nook and cranny of the ministry.
The well-meaning minister will be aware that two ministers before him have been reshuffled in less than three years.
The minister’s weekend war cry in Vihiga must be taken to mean the cartels are so powerful that the ministry has no capacity to keep them off the gravy train.
We also hope that his crusade to stop over-invoicing of cooked-up patient figures will bear fruit because it seems those profiting must be up the food chain where even Duale seems powerless to rein them in.
In the war on corruption, Duale desperately needs the media in his corner because the sharper the light, the more the criminals and their representatives retreat to find easier prey.
Quote of the day: “Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.” —Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper died on September 17, 1994
