Reps demand recall of suspended NHIS boss

The House of Representatives yesterday demanded the immediate recall of the suspended Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof Usman Yusuf.

The House said the suspension of the NHIS boss was unacceptable and absurd because it was done following evidence he gave before a committee of the House investigating the activities of Health Management Organizations (HMOs) in the country.

Our correspondent reports that Prof Yusuf had last month told the House Committee on Healthcare Services during the investigative hearing that HMOs squandered over N351 billion in 12 years and that they do not pay monies to service providers despite collecting same from NHIS.

The lawmakers said Prof Yusuf should be recalled “to continue with his sanitization programme in the agency.”

Adopting a motion by Rep Chike Okafor (APC, Imo), the House summoned the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole, to show cause why he should not be cited for contempt of the House as the suspension appeared to be intended to intimidate the NHIS boss.

The lawmakers said the action was to “punish him for testifying before the House and silence him from further testifying before the House in its constitutional duties of investigation of issues of corruption, inefficiency and waste in governance.”

The House also demanded that the minister and NHIS’s acting ES should stop forthwith every process of reaccrediting HMOs pending the outcome of the ongoing House investigation.

The lawmakers said recent activities of the minister showed that he wanted to coerce the suspended NHIS boss into paying certain amount of money, which were not provided for in the agency’s 2016 budget.

For example, the House said, the minister wrote a letter dated March 28, 2017 through the permanent secretary in the ministry, Binta Adamu Bello, directing the ES to pay the sum of N197 million for rehabilitation works in some federal medical centres.

The money was to be paid into the ministry’s account, but the ES refused to do that after inquiring from the chief medical directors of the affected hospitals.

In another letter dated May 12, the House said, the permanent secretary directed the ES to pay the sum of $37,838 in respect of six staff of the ministry to attend a World Health Organization (WHO) conference in Geneva, while there was no budgetary provision for such in the agency.