NHIS boss’ suspension: We must quiz Health Minister, Reps insist
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| Professor Isaac Adewole |
Chairman of House Committee on Health, Chike Okafor, who, weekend, asked the minister to appear before the committee on Thursday, also gave Wednesday as deadline for the 35 recalcitrant Health Management Organisations, HMOs, to make their financial records available to commissioned auditors for payment update from the NHIS.
Recall that the committee is currently
investigating the alleged mismanagement of N351 billion paid to HMOs by the
NHIS between 2005 and 2017.
The committee had recently conducted a two-day
public hearing where scary revelations of financial mismanagement by HMOs were
made by the NHIS Executive Secretary, Yusuf.
On the heels of the testimony, the Health Minister
suspended him for three months, a development which angered the federal
lawmakers who swiftly, through a motion at a plenary, ordered the Health
Minister to recall the NHIS boss, fearing that his suspension would jeopardize
their investigations into the financial mismanagement.
The House further mandated the minister to appear
before it to convince the lawmakers of his action against the Executive
Secretary.
Okafor said the minister was due to appear before
his committee as mandated by the House on Thursday.
“We have written the minister to invite him to
appear before us as mandated by the House. The date given in the letter is
Thursday, 27 July. I have been in touch with the minister and the last time we
spoke, he told me he was traveling to Ibadan on Friday for the burial of the
late Executive-Director of UNFPA, Prof Babatunde Osotimehin.
“He didn’t tell me he wouldn’t be able to appear
before the committee. The right procedure is for him to write the committee, if
he will not appear before us and as I speak with you, we haven’t received any
letter from him, so I believe we will be meeting with him on Thursday,”, he
said.
On the books of the HMOs, the lawmaker regretted
that of 59 HMOs, only 24 had opened their books for auditing.
Giving heed to the principle of fair hearing,
Okafor said it would only be human that the defaulting HMOs submit their
records on or before Wednesday to the auditors working on behalf the committee
for proper scrutiny.
“As we announced on the final day of the public
hearing on the allegations of fraud in health insurance administration and the
maltreatment on enrollees on NHIS, the committee sent auditors to Lagos State
to thoroughly scrutinise the books of HMOs.
“This was done in order to compare the figures the
NHIS said it paid HMOs overtime, to what they actually received. So far, the
auditors have gone through the accounts of 24 of them, with 35 of these
companies yet to meet with those we sent.
“The NHIS provided us with all the documents to
show how much they paid, but we cannot conclude the investigation without
checking what the HMOs received and this is why we have given them till
Wednesday to allow for a checking of their account.
“But if they don’t comply, we will be compelled to
move on because we are bent on submitting our report on Thursday. The HMOs are
the only parties delaying us, because like I said, NHIS has given us documents
on the monies paid and we’ve also had good responses from hospitals and care
givers,” Okafor said.
Daily Trust
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