Lipa Kama Tender

This evening, Kenyan public sector nurses called off their strike after the government agreed to implement a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) deal. It’s been a painful week for patients around the country as nurses and doctors have been on strike at many public hospitals and medical facilities. Anyone who has spent time in a hospital realizes how much work the nurses do in terms of taking care of patients, alongside doctors – who themselves are still on strike, also awaiting the government to implement their CBA signed n 2013?.

The striking workers used the solidarity slogan “lipa kama tender” – Swahili for “pay (us) the way you pay (government) tenders” as a play on the widespread reports of the government paying out millions and billions of shillings of taxpayers and donor money in overpriced, corrupt, fraudulent tenders for supply of goods or services – some of which were for health-related equipment procurement, and which were flagged by an auditor who has since been removed from the sector.