Government diverts 17 million GHC from collapse of NHIS – NDC

General News of Monday, April 15, 2019

Source: starrfm.com.gh

2019-04-15

The government illegally transfers more than 17 million GHc of funds from the national health insurance system to a private fund management company, All Time Capital Investment, claims the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Sammy Gyamfi, the NDC's national communications officer, said on Monday at the Moment of Truth series in Accra that risk management and due diligence had not been taken before the deal.

Gyamfi said the fund was collapsing despite the government's claim that it had cleared its debt from the plan.

"Recently, in his speech on the state of the nation and during a tour of the United States of America, President Akufo-Addo spread a glaring lie when he baderted that the NHIS was "dynamic and that it came back to life".

"The truth is that the NHIS, well known to the president, is in a deplorable state and out of breath. Currently, the NHIS owes service providers in the sixteen regions of Ghana, covering a period of nearly twelve (12) months. This has led most health facilities in distress. For example, the Daily Graphic reported Thursday, March 28, 2019 that the Central Regional Hospital was on its knees and urged the payment of an amount of 6.1 million GH ¢ owed to it by the Plan in order to settle its debt to critical drug suppliers and medical consumables.

"This is just one example among others of how our health facilities are paralyzed because of the huge indebtedness of the SNIS towards service providers. Ladies and gentlemen, we have also taken note of President Akufo-Addo's persistent statements that his government has settled a total of the 1.2 billion GH ¢ arrears inherited from the former Mahama government. We wish to state unequivocally that this statement is false and is not corroborated by the facts. After the Association of Private Clinics and public hospital leaders disputed this claim, one would have thought that the President would refrain from peddling this obvious illusion. However, it seems that President Akufo-Addo is determined to deceive the nation in this matter. The indisputable evidence contained in the 2017 NHIS fund distribution formula presented by the Minister of Health in the month of August to the European Parliament, show that total claims arrears in NHI amounted to 425.79 million GH ¢ in December 2016. This completely contradicts President Akufo's claims. Addo and exposes him as very dishonest, "said Mr Gyamfi.

He added that the number of active members of the NHIS had declined sharply, contrary to what was happening under the John Mahama administration. He said the program currently has 10.410 million inhabitants against 10.786 million in 2016.

"The statistics above illustrate the loss of confidence of Ghanaians in the national health insurance system and highlight the extreme difficulties in which the regime was plunged by the Akufo-Addo government," Gyamfi said. .

Misuse of NHIS funds

On the alleged misuse of NHIS funds, the NDC said: "It is interesting to note that although best practices dictate the use of 75% to 80% of the funds accumulated to fund the program, the Akufo-Addo government currently uses only 60.64%. % of funds accumulated in the NHI for the purpose intended. This indicates that the Akufo-Addo government has misused the funds from INSA, and we can talk about many of these cases. For example, in 2018, about 163 million ¢ of INS funds were used to pay a nurse education stipend. While the program continues to struggle, more than 300 million GH ¢ should be devoted to ICT and 5 million GH ¢ are devoted to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in 2019. It is a total aberration in relation to the main objective of the fund. The misuse of INSA's free funds stems largely from the cap-and-trade policy put in place by the Akufo-Addo government, during which more than one billion Cedis of Ghana were diverted to the country. benefits from projects unrelated to the government's core objectives. scheme.

"Our audits also revealed that, even if the plan did not have sufficient funds, the government is entrusting the management of claims to a private company, which would result in increased costs for the already overburdened plan. Friends of the media, these harsh realities have resulted in the loss of the NHIS's fortunes, hence its inability to meet the critical health needs of Ghanaians. We believe that these acts of mismanagement of the NHIS must be immediately canceled to save the system from total collapse. Let me say that all the above statistics are contained in the 2019 annual allocation formula and in other documents submitted by the NHIA to Parliament's Health Committee.

Scandal revelations

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have already shown you enough evidence of the misapplication of NSI funds by the Akufo-Addo government, which hastily precipitates the end of the project. However, some scandals that we have discovered that have plotted with the above are perhaps even more flagrant to paralyze the scheme. Our careful investigations revealed that when President Akufo-Addo took office, the National Health Insurance Authority, without any due diligence and with indecent haste, had transferred an amount of seventeen million , five hundred and forty-eight thousand three hundred and seventy-seven Ghana Cedis and twenty pesewas (GH ¢ 17,548,377.20) in three installments to a private financial corporation, All-Time Capital Limited, allegedly as 39; investment. Irrefutable evidence at our disposal indicates that, despite repeated efforts since November 2018 to recover the funds invested and accrued interest, all time-Capital Limited has not repaid.

"Recently, some NHIA employees were unhappy. All Time-Capital Limited informed the NHIA General Manager that it could only attempt certain payments if the funds invested were allowed to be used for an additional year. This situation contributes to the aggravation of the financial situation of the plan. Ladies and Gentlemen, it was this same financial company, All Time-Capital Limited, which participated in the merger of the liquidity support provided by the Bank of Ghana to Capital Bank, which eventually led to the creation of the Sovereign Bank, which has collapsed. In light of the above, there is no reason to deny that this transaction is not limited to what we think.

CONCLUSION

Members of the media, these overwhelming revelations must be of concern to all Ghanaians. The national health insurance scheme, which was supposed to provide a safety net to protect our population in terms of health care needs, is about to collapse due to mismanagement and lack of health care. Imprudence of the Akufo-Addo Government.

The situation has become so much worse that unpaid suppliers are currently driving out service providers from their hospitals and poor NHIS cardholders are denied access to hospitals, including public facilities. We must therefore unite to condemn this flagrant abuse of the regime. The NDC will not relinquish our responsibility to hold this government accountable for its mismanagement of the NHIS and the health sector as a whole. "