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Minister of Health sacked the NHIS boss. Buhari came from London and reinstated him saying he has been “admonished to learn to work harmoniously with the minister.” Buhari forced the minister to eat the humble pie.
The NHIS boss has been suspended again by the Governing Board but he boasted: “Only Buhari can remove me.” He has refused to vacate his seat.
I never thought I will ever agree with President Muhammadu Buhari on any issue. But on the NHIS matter, I have to admit that Buhari was right.
We have condemned the reinstatement of the NHIS Boss who was accused of corruption. NHIS started functioning in 2005. It’s 13yrs old this year.
NHIS covers 3 million Nigerians. It’s about Health Care but, because of corruption, the agency has not performed well. Politicians turned NHIS into their ATM.
Above photo: Police fire teargas at NHIS workers, escort suspended ES into office
Officers of the Nigeria police force are currently clashing with workers at the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) head office in Abuja.
The policemen have also escorted Usman Yusuf, NHIS executive secretary, who was suspended last week, into his office.
We are not aware that our men accompanied suspended NHIS ES to office – Police
Let Me Explain why I support Buhari on the NHIS controversy:
HMOs – Health Maintenance ORG’s, all private companies owned by politicians, are the real problem of NHIS. They are the middle men between NHIS and the hospitals. They have enthroned corruption to another level.
The HMOs receive money from NHIS on behalf of the people to pay hospitals so that Nigerians on the NHIS scheme can enjoy medical services, but they refuse to pay the hospitals and corner the money. NHIS gives the HMOs 3 months in advance to pay hospitals but they were not paying.
What They Do With The NHIS Money:
A. They fix it in banks to accrue interest.
B. They buy forex And do trading with it.
C. They take loans using it as collateral.
When banks know you are getting massive funds from NHIS, they give you 10 times the amount in your account.
So instead of the HMOs paying the hospitals as agreed, they are heavily indebted to all hospitals nationwide, thereby crippling healthcare services nationwide. They currently owe the National Hospital alone N400million.
It’s A Major Cartel:
There are 57 HMOs. They constituted themselves into a cartel at the NHIS. They work hand in hand with every Minister of Health, Board Members, the Executive Secretary(ES) and politicians in government to run the place to the ground.
Evidently, this new ES refused to play ball and they declared war on him.
Early this year, someone contacted me from NHIS stating that the ES is destroying the agency, etc, and that they were appealing to my organization to come to their rescue.
I told him I needed to do my due diligence but I never did. We all joined later to crucify the ES in the media.
However, last week I coincidently ran into a friend that works at NHIS and he briefed me on all the dirty deals going on un the organisation. It’s really depressing.
The things I heard made me wonder if this country can ever be great. I will explain all that is going on there.
So this ES appointed by Buhari came and found out that there was massive corruption going on at NHIS and he wanted to stop drain but the cartel “HMOs” declared war on him.
The HMOs said he can’t stop the norm and teamed up with politicians in Buhari’s government to fight him.
The HMOs got the support of the Board Chairman of NHIS and other members of the Board who are all politicians.
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They also got the support of the Minister of Health and other politicians.
What was the crime of this ES? He wanted to block where politicians are eating from
The issue they had with the ES were:
They were not paying hospitals. Many of their licenses had expired since 2013 and he was asking them to renew before they get disbursements of money, etc.
One of the conditions the ES gave was that every HMOS must go to the hospitals to get a letter of non indebtedness signed by the CMD before they will get funds from the agency.
The hospitals were happy with the new development but HMOs were unhappy.
The NHIS is strategically important to Nigerians. In an organised country, every citizen should be captured in the scheme.
NHIS pays Federal, State and even private hospitals through HMOs. Nigerians on the scheme are the main beneficiaries.
Many workers are on the scheme. NHIS also pay Military and Police hospitals nationwide.
The police alone have over 800 thousand officers and their dependants on the scheme.
The Ministry of Health and politicians are the number one problem of NHIS in Nigeria. They use NHIS as an ATM.
Because the ES stopped them, he was suspended on allegations of corruption which many of us believed because of media trial. EFCC thereafter investigated him.
The ES was reinstated because EFCC did not find him wanting according to my friend that works there.
He said after his reinstatement, the ES became tougher on the HMOs and the Board and the Minister began to plot his removal again.
The ES was just suspended again on the eve of delisting many unqualified HMOS, a Pre-emptive move by the NHIS Board anf the Minister.
The union is also on the payroll of the HMOs.
The HMOs are the real cartel at NHIS. HMOs were angry that the ES instituted a forensic audit of NHIS finances.
The audit discovered that N46billion of NHIS funds were stashed away in different banks. These are people’s money.
The HMOs say the ES is using EFCC, CBN, AG, Accountant General and Asset Recovery Panel to fight them.
Our national and State hospitals are under funded and many of them survive on the NHIS money.
For instance, FMC Asaba got only about N18million from the budget last year and they need over N10million to power the hospital with diesel. So how will they survive without NHIS funding?
Therefore if the HMOs take money from NHIS and refuse to pay the hospitals, they are destroying our health sector.
The Union, the Board and the Ministry of Health should stop the rubbish they are doing to cripple our health sector.
Response from ElombahNews member: Why can’t the ES simply address the issues? Are you saying everybody, including the minister, the board members and the staff are corrupt except the ES? Is it possible that not one member of the governing council of the NHIS supports the ES? Isn’t the ES under investigation by the EFCC? Has the EFCC investigation been concluded? If yes, what is the outcome?
For a government that has shown crass nepotism, one shouldn’t be surprised for the simple reason that Prof. Yusuf, the ES is the president’s kinsman…
In anycase, we’d expect the ES to tell us what he has done differently from what he met on ground. For instance, how many Nigerians have been added to the scheme and how many hospitals have been paid ever since he found the HMO are shortchanging the hospitals…
In the meantime, an individual can’t be so powerful than the governing council. He should make way and allow unfettered access to the records by the investigators…
