HEALTH INSURANCE BOARD CONDEMNS DEMONSTRATION (PAGE 20)

Story: Vincent Adedze, Bolga

THE Board of Directors of the Central Gonja District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme and the district assembly have described the recent demonstration by a group of youth in the area as irrelevant, politically motivated and calculated to make the scheme unpopular.
The two institutions have, therefore, referred the matter to the District Security Committee (DISEC) for appropriate action to be taken as soon as practicable in order not to breach the “fragile peace we are currently enjoying in Buipe”.
The Board Chairman of the scheme, Mr Kingsley Mainoo, and the District Chief Executive, Mr Zakariah Yakubu, made this known at a joint news conference at Buipe.
The two institutions organised the news conference in reaction to the recent demonstration by a group calling itself the “Concerned Youth of Central Gonja District”.
The demonstrators, among other things, expressed dissatisfaction with the operations of the scheme and accused the Scheme Manager, Mr Dauda Mahama, of incompetence and abuse of office.
“The recent demonstration was only an orchestration to malign the scheme manager to achieve their selfish interests; it had some political undertones and calculated to make the government’s policy on the health insurance scheme unpopular,” Mr Yakubu stressed.
The DCE described the action of the group as baseless, adding that “it is crystal clear that the organisers of the recent demonstration are a group of miscreants, who are bent on denting the image of the scheme manager out of sheer greed and envy.
“The leadership of the group ignorantly accused the scheme of operating without a working plan, budget, goals and objectives, all of which are a blatant lie because all such documents were put in place before the district acquired a certificate from the Registrar General’s outfit,” Mr Yakubu stated.
He said the National Health Insurance Council granted the district GH¢15,000 as start-up funds to make the scheme operational.
The DCE further stated that after receiving the funds, the district assembly carried out various activities such as training of the management team, sensitisation of communities, setting up of office and the formation of health insurance community committees.
Mr Yakubu disclosed that over the past one year, the scheme had registered 10,245 clients and issued 8,744 identity cards to the beneficiaries.
He, however, stated that 1,501 identity cards were still being processed while 873 beneficiaries were attending the various health facilities.
According to the DCE, as of March, 2008, a total of GH¢5,463,945 was paid as claims for beneficiaries while the total premium collected as of March 2008 was GH¢21,583.
“The district made frantic efforts after its creation in 2004 to establish its own Mutual Health Insurance Scheme due to the difficulty of the West Gonja District Assembly to effectively cover the two districts,” Mr Yakubu added.
He stated that the scheme manager was not accountable to “any individual or group of persons but to the Board of Directors of the scheme only.
“Anybody who wants information on the scheme must first and foremost contact the board of directors,” Mr Yakubu stressed.
The board chairman, Mr Mainoo, however, acknowledged the fact that there was a misunderstanding between the scheme manager and the accountant and that had affected the smooth implementation of the scheme.
According to Mr Mainoo, the board was still finding ways of resolving the matter once and for all.
He stressed: “If we see that the two cannot work together, then we would separate them; but we are optimistic that the problem would be resolved.”