General News of 2013-03-12

NHIA Boss is a failure – NDC group

A group associated with the ruling NDC has called on President Mahama to sack Mr. Sylvester Mensah, CEO of the Ghana National Health Insurance Authority, whom they accused of being a “failure, burden and liability” on the government.

The Alliance for the Empowerment of NDC Constituency Branch Executives maintained: “Mr. President, for the last four years despite massive infrastructural investments and resources available to Mr. Sylvester Mensah, he has woefully failed to provide leadership to realize our dream of one-time premium policy implementation; personally failed to send the scheme to rural-urban poor families; as Chief Executive he has been more of a reactionary than a proactive/strategic manager of the institution and the scheme.”

Chairman of the Alliance, Ebenezer Arkutu, in a statement copied to myjoyonline.com said claims by Sylvester Mensah that the National Health Insurance Scheme under his watch was ranked higher and better than that of the United Kingdom and the United States of America “is in fact insulting and annoying to say the least”.

According to Mr Arkutu, the opposition in the 2012 elections exploited his failure and portrayed the picture that the scheme had collapsed under the NDC government.

He therefore warned: “Mr. President, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Health Insurance Authority cannot keep his job or be trusted with any other position in our government to advance the Better Ghana Agenda. He must go or else the foot soldiers will let him go by any means necessary. This is important to serve as an example to those who are clamouring for positions as well as those already appointed in the current administration that they must achieve policy vision of the NDC governments’ manifesto. This era is not an era of “chop money position(s)”.