Ruto Gives Officials One Week to Fix Health Workers’ Salary Arrears
August 2026
President William Ruto has given national and county government officials one week to sort out unpaid salary arrears owed to health workers, after a national summit exposed fresh cracks in his flagship Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme. The directive came during a review meeting called to take stock of health reforms four years into his administration.
The gathering was meant to celebrate progress on the President’s signature health agenda. Instead, it turned into a forum for airing grievances, as tensions between health worker unions and county governments once again dominated discussion.
Nurses Strike Nationwide
Seth Panyako, Secretary General of the Kenya National Union of Nurses, told the summit that nurses had already downed their tools. He said, “Nurses are currently on strike,” and added that the union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement had still not been honoured, according to Citizen Digital’s coverage of the meeting.
That agreement is not new. Citizen Digital’s report notes that the CBA in question was signed back in 2017, meaning nurses have waited close to a decade for full implementation. The recurring strikes have become something of a pattern in Kenya’s devolved health sector, with pay disputes flaring up whenever national and county budgets fail to align on who foots the wage bill.
Counties Respond to Claims
Abdulswamad Nassir, who chairs the Health Committee at the Council of Governors, did not dispute that salaries had been delayed. He acknowledged the delays while questioning why the near-decade-old agreement remained so hard to implement. Nassir suggested some of the hold-up traced back to administrative handover issues, saying, “I think probably because of this transition, I delayed salaries by a day or two.”
His remarks put counties in an awkward spot. Governors are frequently blamed by unions for withholding pay, yet they also point to national government transfers that arrive late or fall short of what devolved health budgets actually need. Nurses and clinical officers caught in between often bear the practical cost, sometimes going weeks without pay while still reporting for shifts at public hospitals.
Ruto’s Ultimatum
Ruto did not take sides publicly but made clear he wanted the standoff ended quickly. He said the national government stood ready to step in where it could help resolve the impasse. Speaking bluntly about the timeline, Ruto said, “If today is August 19 and July salaries have not been paid, then there is a problem.”
He warned that unpaid wages sap morale among frontline health staff. The President then directed that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission join talks on the stalled collective bargaining agreements, a move meant to bring an independent body into what has largely been a two-way fight between unions and county employers. He then set the one-week clock running for national and county officials to find a workable fix for the UHC workers caught up in the dispute.
Why This Matters
Kenya’s UHC rollout depends heavily on health workers employed and paid through county governments, even though the policy itself is a national priority driven from State House. When that funding chain breaks down, patients feel it first, through cancelled clinics, delayed treatment and overstretched skeleton staff during strikes.
Whether the one-week deadline produces an actual fix, or simply another round of promises, remains to be seen. Given that the underlying agreement has already gone unimplemented for close to eight years, health workers and the public they serve will be watching closely to see if this ultimatum lands any differently than the ones before it.
