There was a faint smell of damp earth lingering in the air at Bomachoge Borabu—the kind you get right after a light rain—as President William Ruto stepped up to talk about the Social Health Authority (SHA). He’s been really pushing this scheme lately. The message is simple enough: if you haven’t signed up yet, you really should. The President insists it’s the key to keeping people from having to sell off their cows or land just to cover a hospital bill.
“When you register for SHA, the government is in a better position to plan the medical personnel to recruit and the equipment to place in various facilities,” he noted during his stop. It’s an interesting pitch, honestly, because he’s framing the registration process almost as a civic duty that makes the whole system smarter. According to Misryoum, the insurance scheme has already pushed Sh5 billion into Kisii hospitals since October 2024. That’s a decent chunk of change, assuming it actually filters down to where it’s needed most, right? Or maybe that’s just how the math works out on paper.
He spent a good chunk of his Tuesday walking around the Mogonga Modern Market site. It started as a Sh55 million project, but—and this is classic construction life—the President looked at the crowd and decided they needed more room, so he tacked on another Sh20 million to make it a two-storey building. It’s supposed to protect traders from the sun and rain, which is a big deal if you’ve ever spent an afternoon baking under a corrugated iron sheet.
Misryoum reports that the President also commissioned a Sh55 million market in Nyaribari Masaba, complete with an ICT hub for IDs and birth certificates. It feels like he’s trying to drag everything into the digital age, which is fine, provided the internet actually stays on. You know how those things go.
Beyond the markets, the numbers were flying fast. He mentioned 41,000 homes connected to electricity over the last few years, with plans to drop another Sh2 billion to get 28,000 more homes hooked up. He also touched on the Sh500 million industrial park for value addition on crops like coffee and bananas. It’s a lot of promises, and a lot of zeroes to keep track of—especially the Sh18 billion for affordable housing.
Anyway, the tour is wrapping up its third day now. He keeps talking about unity and how the county and national governments need to play nice. Whether that actually happens on the ground in the long run is… well, we’ll see.