Coast General Hospital too expensive to operate, says official

Coast General Hospital, which serves all six Coast region counties, gobbles over Sh1.8 billion in operation costs annually, against the national government allocation of Sh258 million.

County Secretary Hamisi Mwaguya said the hospital was a major burden to the county, adding that part of the money could go to other development programmes.

He noted that the county government had managed to raise Sh1.7 billion from taxes annually for the last two years, up from Sh1.4 billion collected by the defunct Mombasa Municipal Council. But the revenues still could not finance major development projects.

"What we collect is far below what the hospital gobbles up. We are planning to automate revenue collection by March this year to enable us to fund other development projects," Mr Mwaguya said.

He was explaining why the county government had been unable to allocate 30 per cent of its revenue to development programmes as required by the law.

He blamed the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) for allocating only Sh4.2 billion to the county in the current financial year, which goes to the expenditure budget.

"We are left with very little to spend on development after settling a wage bill amounting to Sh4 billion annually because we receive a meagre allocation from CRA," he said.

Mwaguya said the county government had made a presentation to CRA and expected the commission to consider the county's position when it reviewed the current formula on revenue sharing this year.

Big spenders

Apart from the huge healthcare burden, the official said the county was grappling with street lighting, garbage collection and huge debts inherited from the defunct municipal council.

The county's high annual wage bill is attributed to the fact that Mombasa formerly hosted the Coast provincial headquarters that had a large workforce.

A World Bank report placed Mombasa among the counties that performed poorly in development spending.

Following were Kisumu, Tana River, Embu, Uasin Gishu, Nakuru, Nairobi, Kilifi, Narok, Laikipia, Busia, Baringo and Bungoma.