Minority criticizes NHIA's GH₵245m allocation of Ghana Cards for children

The Minority in Parliament has voiced strong criticism against the National Health Insurance Authority's (NHIA) plan to allocate GH₵245 million for the procurement of Ghana Cards for children aged six to 14.

The NHIA justifies this move by stating that providing these cards to children in this age group would eliminate the need for separate printing of National Health

Read full articleInsurance cards for them.

However, during a parliamentary session on Friday, March 22, the former Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, condemned the decision as reckless, arguing that the NHIA's primary focus should be on settling claims rather than diverting funds to purchase Ghana Cards.

Mr. Iddrisu questioned the rationale behind duplicating efforts and spending additional funds on data procurement when the state is already engaged in acquiring Ghana Cards.

"We need more answers from the National Identification Authority and the Health Insurance. I do not think that this State's resources are being spent well," Mr. Iddrisu stated.

The Minority Chief Whip, Kwame Governs Agbodza, also called for a parliamentary audit into what he described as the NHIA's significant spending on ICT-related expenses.

He expressed concern over the NHIA allocating nearly one billion Ghana cedis towards ICT-related projects, highlighting various expenditures such as the claims processing centre, biometric ID cards authentication system, management information system, telecare service platform, and claims data capture.

Despite requests for an independent audit of the NHIS system, Mr. Agbodza emphasized that the authority has failed to comply.

"Mr. Speaker, even the Ministry of Communication, how much money do they spend on ICT and other things? Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time we requested that the NHIS should conduct an independent audit of the system and report to Parliament. As we speak, they have failed to do the audit and furnish Parliament so we are saying Parliament should institute its own audit into this," he said.

The call for an independent audit reflects the Minority's concern over the management of funds within the NHIA and highlights the need for greater transparency and accountability in the allocation of resources.