Massive Corruption In National Health Insurance Scheme, How N13.7 Billion Was Paid Out In 10 Days

A snippet of the quantum of institutional rot in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in recent years has been uncovered by LEADERSHIP Friday.

According to a document sighted by the paper, in just one day in 2013, the sum of N13.7 billion was deposited in a bank with the sole aim of generating a higher return for those involved to the detriment of the organisation.

This is as the current executive secretary and chief executive officer (ES/CEO), Prof Yusuf Usman, continues to come under persistent media and labour union attacks for the steps he has been taking since he assumed office six months ago to unearth many of the scams allegedly perpetrated by some of his predecessors and their cronies.

Prof. Usman, who spoke exclusively to LEADERSHIP Friday, lamented the level of sleaze he discovered since taking over last year, saying, “I know I am not fighting unions but a war by proxy.’’

In the document seen by this paper, 13 banks were accomplices in a mega-billion naira financial irregularity that rocked the NHIS between 2013 and 2015, thus affecting the legal operation of the organisation, which is primarily to provide health to teeming Nigerians at a subsidised rate.

It was gathered that within those ten days the questionable deposits were made, the prevailing interest rate accruable as a result continued to nose-dive daily.

LEADERSHIP Friday also uncovered another fraud in a land purchase deal; the going prize was N300 million, but it was purchased for N1billion.

“What I found in NHIS is pathetic. I met endemic corruption, inefficiency, political patronage and impunity. We have not been good custodians of that which we were entrusted with, which is people’s common wealth.

‘’We have allowed HMOs (Health Management Organisations) take our money, take enrolment, dictate referral and take over the regulation. In Nigeria, enrolees do not have the right to choose their HMOs. They are handed over to HMOs. Nobody in any ministry or MDA will tell me he chose his HMO. The ministry or the MDA just handed people over to HMOs. Even me, the CEO, I have already been handed over to Hygea.

“The core mandate of the NHIS is to provide healthcare coverage for all Nigerians via hospitals. Yet many people cannot afford to go to hospitals. They remain sick at home and keep suffering. NHIS is supposed to provide access for people to go to hospitals. That is essentially our goal – universal healthcare coverage, to make sure we reduce the cost of healthcare and to make sure that the services provided to our enrolees have the quality that they should have,’’ Usman said.

The NHIS boss lamented that for almost 12 years since inception, only three to four million Nigerians have been covered, whereas countries like Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda had covered 50-60 per cent  of their people.

“So clearly, we have not been doing something right over the last 11 years. Have we achieved our mandate? No. Are we there? No. Are we near there? No, we are no,’’ he stated.

According to him, Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya were able to achieve the level of coverage of their people they attained without HMOs, but that despite Nigeria’s adoption of the American model, its operation is ‘skewed against the little man’ and in favour of the HMOs.

“They have been feeding fat on people’s contributions. They have been collecting contributions and have not been providing the care they are paid to provide. And that is why I am here, to clean the house. HMOs have added nothing to healthcare financing in Nigeria, the executive secretary stressed.

Emphasising that the financing, so far, had simply been subsidies to HMOs, he said the scheme, as it were, was worse than fuel subsidy “because with fuel subsidies people cash their cheques and leave town, but HMOs, because of what they have done, have caused enormous suffering and even death’’ to so many people.

Spectacularly, the NHIS chief executive accused the agency of connivance in fleecing patients.

According to him, the NHIS has been ‘’complicit in the corruption and plundering of enrolees’ money. We have not enforced what the law asked us to enforce. We have allowed HMOs to dictate to us what health insurance should be. Secondly, the HMOs have not lived up to their contractual obligations.

“They have been holding people’s money instead of paying it to hospitals on behalf of them and their families. They have been buying foreign exchange with people’s money. Our patients go to hospitals and they get poorly treated because HMOs had not paid,’’ he added.

Usman, however, restated his resolve to restore the agency on the path of rectitude.

“They are now running scared because they know that I am speaking the truth. But I am going to clean the mess. I will hold HMOs accountable and they must do that which they have signed to do,’’ he vowed.

Source: Leadership