NHIA staff to sign agreement

THE National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says staff of the authority will from this month sign what it termed confidentiality agreement.
That, according to the authority, is to control indiscriminate dissemination of information by all categories of staff.
At a recent durbar held in Accra for staff at the headquarters of the authority and those in the Greater Accra Region, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NHIA, Mr Sylvester Mensah, said much as the authority would not want to hide information from the public, authorised officers with the right form of information should be responsible for that.
He explained that some staff members of the headquarters would be posted to the regional offices to strengthen the public relations outfits there.
Mr Mensah took the opportunity to announce some new appointments, as well as a number of transfers, which had taken place since the beginning of the year.
Throwing more light on the issue of confidentiality agreement, the NHIA Board Secretary, who is also the Head of Legal Affairs, Mrs Aimee Yuori, told the Daily Graphic that the move was to protect corporate information as well as ensure that discipline existed among the various positions of the authority.
She explained that the procedure was in line with what persisted in many public and civil entities where information flow was regulated in a similar manner.
Mrs Yuori said there was no institution or organisation anywhere where management would encourage that all types of information, either confidential or otherwise, to go out anyhow without any checks in place.
In an answer to a question, she stressed that although there had not been any time where any damaging information had gotten out to the public, there were, however, occasions where some members of staff gave out information which later turned out to be wrong and embarrassing.
Elaborating on the procedure, she said all staff members would be made to sign forms which would be placed on their personal files, adding that any personnel who flouted the agreement would be sanctioned based on the NHIA’s conditions of service.
“When a case like that happens, the authority would look at it and based on the conditions of service, will come out with the appropriate sanction,” she stated.