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[Update: Feb 25: A review by Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Council, the doctors’ union, found that rates themselves charged for services were permissible but verified that a What’s App group was being used to allow managers to have direct input into medical decisions such as discharges warranting better procedures. The Star has taken down a story –which I linked–that seems to have a reflected a PR spin on the report which was itself then leaked on Twitter. So the saga continues.]

Update: Feb. 12, Jaindi Kisero column in Daily Nation recommends, “To ward off greedy investors, fund locals to put up private hospitals“.

Back in 2019 a private equity group from Ft. Worth, Texas and San Francisco, TPG, took over the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund from its interim manager Alix Partners, the U.S.- based restructuring/insolvency advisors. The Abraaj funds, run out of Dubai by original Pakistani investors, had been apparently fraudulently tapped by management, thus the restructuring under the auspices of a Limited Partner Advisory Committee, which hired Alix.

The Limited Partners included global healthcare giants Phillips and Medtronic, multilateral development lenders including the IFC as well as bilateral development finance agencies such as the US Government’s OPIC, the CDC and Proparco. Likewise the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested.

TPG renamed the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund as the Evercare Health Fund, to be managed by TPG Growth. At the time of the TPG announcement, Evercare was identified as having a “portfolio which includes 26 hospitals, 18 clinics, 40 diagnostics centres and 2 brownfield and greenfield assets” in Africa and Asia. One of the asset groups in the newly renamed Health Fund was a Kenya for profit group of small hospitals called Nairobi Women’s.

See “US fund cleared to take over Avenue Park and Metropolitan” in The Business Daily.

Triggered by an explosive series by prominent Nairobi blogger Owaahh, “Have you ever been to a private hospital“, scrutiny has come down on the group for profiteering behavior toward patients without medical basis. Insurers pulled back and now the Fund has announced an interim management change with the entrepreneur/doctor who built and ran group stepping aside in favor of a three member team of Evercare representatives pending professional reviews.

[Update March 25–readers have asked how much Kenyan taxpayers are giving the Podesta Group. According to the Justice Department filings, the current 1 year contract through May 2016 costs $360,000 US, payable at $30,000 month in advance, plus expenses. So the minimum cost of the “contacts” shown at the link below for June-August is $90,000.]

The Podesta Group filed its latest supplement to its Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosure of lobbying contacts for the Government of Kenya with the U.S. Justice Department last month, covering its work during the third quarter of 2015:

Foreign Agent Registration Act filing Podesta Group Supplemental Statement 2-16 for 2015-Q3 Kenya

As you can see, the lobby group continued to work public relations efforts with media outlets such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters and The Guardian, along with Congressional offices, the National Security Council, the State Department and other agencies, various think tanks, and financial officers of the States of Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.

See: Washington Post, New York Times, Poltico, Roll Call, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Financial Times, Reuters, Washington Diplomat

AFRICOMMONS

Ken Flottman’s Blog on Democracy in Kenya, East Africa and the United States

Tag Archives: Texas

Kenya Public/Private Equity Healthcare Market faces another setback with management displaced at Nairobi Women’s Hospital Group in wake of Owaahh reporting

[Updated] Latest Podesta Group Foreign Agent disclosure filing on lobbying for Kenya: Media, Congress and Executive Branch, State Comptrollers and Treasurers

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