Girls in public schools to get free sanitary towels

The Government will now be required to provide every girl enrolled in a public school and has reached puberty with sanitary towels.

This follows the signing into law of the Basic Education Amendment Bill (2016).

The Bill amended the Basic Education Act. The new law also says the Government should provide a safe and environmentally sound mechanism for disposal of sanitary towels.

It further states the Government should provide funds to buy sufficient and quality sanitary towels.

The Bill was among nine signed into law by president Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday. The Head of State also signed the Division of Revenue Bill (2017), and the Finance Bill (2017), Supplementary Appropriation Bill (2017), Health Bill (2015), Insurance Amendment Bill(2017), Hydrologist Bill (2016), the Clinical Officers Bill (2016) and National Coroners Service Bill (2016).

The Division of Revenue Act seeks to provide for the equitable provision of revenue raised nationally between the national and county governments in 2017-18 financial year.

The national government share is Sh1,238,343,840,000 and the counties allocation is Sh345,681,081,499, which is 36.95 per cent of the revenue raised nationally.

The national government share includes Sh3.4 billion, which is a special grant to the National Health Insurance Fund for free maternal healthcare.

Leasing equipment

The conditional allocation to county governments is for leasing medical equipment, level five hospitals, construction of county headquarters and rehabilitation of youth polytechnics.

The Finance Act seeks to amend the law relating to various taxes and duties. It also seeks to amend The Betting, Lotteries and Gambling Act which increases the tax rates to 35 per cent.

The Supplementary Appropriation Act proposes the issuance of Sh31 billion to cater for among other things the development expenses for basic education programmes, university education, power generation and transmission, agriculture, environment management and protection, national referral and specialised services and water resources management.

The Insurance Amendment Bill was submitted by the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury in line with the proposals announced in the 2017-18 budget.

The new law amends the Insurance Act (Cap. 487) to harmonise the provision following recent amendment to the Act.

On the other hand, the Health Act establishes a unified health system, to coordinate the inter-relationship between the national government and county government health systems.

This will help regulate healthcare industry.

The new health law also seeks to define how national health policy shall be formulated, implemented and coordinated between the two levels of government.

In particular, it seeks to among other things achieve the establishment of a national health system which shall progressively realise the right to the highest attainable standard of health, including the right to healthcare services and reproductive health.

The Clinical Officers Act provides for the training, registration and licensing of clinical officers. It establishes the Clinical Officers Council of Kenya, which will be responsible for advising the Government on policy matters relating to clinical medicine practise among other things.

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi presented the Bills to the President for signing at State House Nairobi.

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