NHIA fires 3 more officials

Monday, May 24, 2010

THREE more officials of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) have been dismissed, while five others have been interdicted, for their alleged involvement in fraudulent activities.
The dismissed officials are Yakubu Suhununu, the scheme accountant of the Nanumba North District Mutual District Health Insurance Scheme (DMHIS); Bertraund Tanefa Gbemu of the Akuapem South DMHIS and Rockson Bonnie, the scheme manager of the Sekyere West DMHIS.
Those interdicted are Emmanuel Avinu, scheme manager; Charles Ewudzie, claims manager, and John Kwaku Ahadzie, scheme accountant, all of the Ketu DMHIS.
The rest are Michael Opoku, the scheme accountant, and Felix Yankyera Donkor, the claims manager, both of the Sekyere West DMHIS.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NHIA, Mr Sylvester Mensah, who made this known at a workshop in Accra, said the dismissal and interdiction of the officials were done after financial and clinical audits of the operations of the health insurance schemes in March 2010.
The latest action brings to 32 the number of NHIA officials who have either been dismissed or interdicted as a result of their alleged involvement in fraudulent activities which were uncovered through clinical auditing conducted by a special audit team set up by the authority late last year. A statement signed by the Deputy Director of Public Affairs at the NHIA, Mr Eric Ametor-Quarmyne, to throw more light on the dismissals and interdiction explained that Suhununu’s dismissal followed investigations conducted into the operations of the scheme which established fraud.
In Gbemu’s case, it indicated that she was found to have misappropriated GH¢10,879, being premiums she collected from subscribers for the period January 2009 to February 2010 at the Aburi sub-office of the Akuapem South DMHIS.
According to the statement, Bonnie was summarily dismissed for failing to respond to a query following a claims audit conducted on the Sekyere West DMHIS between January 27, 2010 and February 4, 2010.
“The dismissal letters cited various clauses of the NHIA’s staff conditions of service in sanctioning the affected officials. Yakubu Suhununu and Rockson Bonnie failed to respond to queries issued to them to explain themselves when they were given the opportunity to do so,” it stated.
Regarding the three scheme officials of the Ketu DMHIS, their interdiction letters stated that they were ”interdicted from the Ketu DMHIS with effect from Monday, May 17, 2010, in order for investigations to be carried out into the case in a fair and uninterrupted manner”.
The affected had, therefore, been instructed to hand over the running of the scheme and any scheme property in their possession to the Volta Regional Manager.
The decision to interdict them followed revelations of financial and clinical audits carried out on the operations of the Ketu DMHIS which resulted in the recovery of some GH¢982,000, being fraudulent claims, from various service providers in the district.
The audits also established that a fictitious claim of GH¢51,000 was credited to the account of the St Anthony Hospital by the scheme accountant.
The statement said further investigations revealed that the hospital did not submit any such claim to the scheme.
The audit also established that, since April 2008, the scheme had completely failed to vet claims submitted to it by service providers in the district.
“The clinical and financial audit reports indicted the management of the scheme for their omissions, commissions, and managerial incompetence for the lapses uncovered by the audit teams,” it said.
Meanwhile, the Volta Regional Manager of the NHIA has been directed to assume responsibility for the operations of the scheme in the interim, while a final determination is made on their case.