NHIA Boss Blows $72,000 on rent advance

A Case Of Shocking Profligacy Under Mills ‘Humble’ Nose…

NHIA BOSS BLOWS $72, 000 ON RENT ADVANCE!

…For Just Two Years!

We live in Ghana, but clearly, some people are living in paradise, and the passport to paradise is our money and taxes that we have all sweated to pay!

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr. Sylvester Mensah, is one such person! He is currently living in a very expensive type of heaven, under the very nose of our ‘humble’ President!

Indeed, Mr. Mensah has forked out a whopping $72, 000.00 (United States dollars) of public funds to rent accommodation, for two short years, the Daily Searchlight can reveal!

The money for the accommodation, located at the swank Airport Residential Area, is just one more item of expenditure chalked up by the free-spending Sylvester Mensah, who has so far blown about two billion old Ghana cedis on two deluxe vehicles for his use!

At the going rate, Mr. Mensah is paying a whopping $3000.00 a month for his rent, at a time when many of the health insurance schemes across the country are buckling under the strain of unpaid claims!

Meanwhile highly placed sources at the NHIA have revealed that the newly rented accommodation is to serve as duty post for Mr. Mensah, an Accra-born Ghanaian who has lived in Accra all his life and claims to belong to a social democratic party that cares for the welfare of the people!

Yesterday, a social commentator, learning of the expenditures at the NHIA since Mr. Mensah took over, wondered, “Will they be spending money like this, if it were their own?”

In the few months that he has been in office, Mr. Mensah has instituted numerous investigations over alleged malfeasance in some of the mutual health insurance schemes, some of them involving comparatively minor sums like ten thousand Ghana cedis. With the NHIA controlling over three hundred million dollars, however, Mr. Mensah has not hesitated in splurging out on himself and his appointees.

Recently the scheme underwrote the purchase of ten four wheel drives for senior management, in addition to buying two top of the range vehicles for the use of Mr. Mensah.

In addition, Mr. Mensah has totally bloated the staff strength of the NHIA, filling it with dozens of NDC adherents at increased cost to the taxpayer!