The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) Chair Peterson Wachira addressing the Media in Machakos. Photo by Virginia Siebella 
By Virginia Siebella
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) has issued a fresh warning of a nationwide strike within 21 days, accusing the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors (CoG) of deliberately delaying the signing and implementation of the 2024 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and other key commitments made in last year’s return-to-work formula.
Speaking in Machakos on Friday after a special delegates’ meeting, KUCO National Chair Peterson Wachira said the union had exhausted all diplomatic avenues and now believes health sector employers are “desirous of seeing a strike” despite the devastating impact it would have on patients across the country.
“Today we are here because employers have decided to go back on the agreement we signed last year,” he said. “Kenyans remember that between April and July 2024, clinical officers held the longest strike—over 100 days—because the employers failed to honour court orders directing both parties to conclude a CBA,” said Peterson Wachira, the National Chair of KUCO.
Wachira noted that the strike was only resolved through a Labour Court-supervised return-to-work deal signed on July 7, 2024, which obligated the Ministry of Health and CoG to finalise the CBA within 90 days, streamline promotions, absorb Universal Health Coverage (UHC) staff, and address career progression issues for clinical officers.
He said negotiations resumed and significant progress was made, including obtaining approval from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in September. “We sat down with the Ministry of Health, concluded the CBA in accordance with SRC approval, and even printed it awaiting signatures. Three months later, nothing has happened,” he said.
Wachira accused Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale and several governors of intentionally frustrating the process. “It is now evidently clear that CS Duale, his Principal Secretaries, and the Council of Governors do not want to sign the CBA. They are the ones pushing for a strike in the health sector,” he said. “We have reached the point where the only option left is to down our tools.”
KUCO Secretary General George Gibore, echoing the chair’s remarks, said the union had shown exceptional goodwill by allowing more than a year for government agencies to implement the return-to-work formula. “We came to seek the mandate to call a national strike because both county and national governments have failed on numerous commitments,” he said.
Gibore cited the failure to harmonise salaries for UHC staff, missed deadlines on promotions and redesignations, and the refusal by the Ministry to sign an already-concluded CBA. “We are now three months past finalising the CBA, and even after receiving concurrence from Treasury and SRC, the CS remains unwilling to sign,” he said.
He added that some governors privately acknowledge that CoG’s position on clinical officers “is not right,” but remain tied to its collective stance.
Unless the CBA is signed and implementation begins immediately, KUCO says all clinical officers in all 47 counties and national referral hospitals will down their tools in 21 days, bringing critical health services to a halt.
