Say scheme, can’t account for billions of public funds
By Tordue Salem – Abuja
The House of Representatives Joint-Committee on Insurance & Actuarial Matters, Health Services and Health Institutions, has disclosed that despite a steady guzzle of billions of public funds in 15 years, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has captured less than five per cent of Nigerians.
Besides, the Committee said, it also discovered that N30billion of NHIS funds, belonging to states, were yet to be disbursed to the beneficiaries.
Chairman of the Joint Committee, Rep. Darlington Nwokocha, disclosed this yesterday at a public hearing held at the National Assembly.
“The NHIS went into operation in 2005, and 14years later, it has covered less than five per cent of Nigeria’s population, based on available information from the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Bureau of Statistics”, he stated.
He said the public hearing “is very crucial as our goal is to deliberate, analyse and address the challenges and many controversies among and between the major stakeholders in the Health Insurance sector and the poor health Insurance coverage in Nigeria after many years of implementation”.
The Committee regretted that though the scheme was established to cater for government employees, organised private sector and the informal sector, including children under five, people living with permanent disability and prison inmates, these set of Nigerians, were not covered.
“The objective of a repositioned Health Insurance Sector as a driver of Universal Health Coverage, therefore, must include moving the present scheme to a system in a planned and strategic manner, with a view to ensuring that about 80% of Nigerians have access to affordable and quality health services,” Mr Nwokocha said.
He warned that until drastic reforms were carried out in the health sector, Nigerians would continue to be denied their basic and constitutionally guaranteed rights to health care.
The Committee, according to Nwokocha, also discovered that over “N30billion Funds” of the CBN, were “yet to be assessed, from the 2018 budget.”
He charged the managers of the scheme to also explore the possibility of running the institution as a business concern.
Vanguard