Former employees of the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) have alleged a plot to fire at least 80 per cent of them despite the government’s assurance that they would be absorbed into the new Social Health Authority (SHA).

In a statement on Friday, the Kenya Union of Commercial Food and Allied Workers Union (KUCFAW) claimed that the affected public servants were being sidelined in the ongoing recruitment to fill positions at the authority.

“We have noted that despite the assurance from His Excellency, the President of Kenya, and the provisions in law under the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) Act 2023 providing for the absorption of NHIF employees into SHA, there is a deliberate effort to kick out more than eighty per cent (80%) of workers of the defunct NHIF,” said KUCFAW acting Secretary General Andrew Kinyua.

The employees whose jobs are now in limbo insist that they are competent for the advertised posts, citing the experience gained during the days of NHIF, which SHA can leverage to cut costs likely to be incurred in training new staff.

Further, they have warned that the dispute may end up in court should the government fail to sort the matter within the next three days.

“As KUCFAW, we are contemplating moving to court to seek to declare the whole process a violation of the law in the event we don’t receive a favorable response from the SHA Board within the next 72 hours,” Kinyua stated.

NHIF was phased out in a transition that ushered in SHA in October last year.

However, the workers of the defunct parastatal have remained jittery about the security of their jobs since the plan was mooted.

To ease their worries and neutralise opposition to the change, the government agreed to prioritise qualified employees of NHIF when recruiting for SHA to prevent unfair job losses.

While NHIF had 1,732 employees at the time of its closing, SHA declared only 815 positions, leaving hundreds jobless. Some have since been redeployed to the Public Service Commission (PSC), sometimes with massive salary cuts.

KUCFAW says that the alleged discrimination in hiring was evident in the recruitment of SHA CEO, Directors and Deputy Directors.

The authority was yet to respond to the union at the time of publishing.