Our 250K donation less than 5% of CSR budget for 2020 – NHIA reacts to backlash

The National Health Insurance Authority has clarified that the whooping GHC250,000 they donated into the COVID-19 Fund forms only a small fraction of their Corporate Social Responsibility budgetary allocation for the year 2020.

This, they claim is contrary to criticism by the Minority in Parliament, Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana (PHFAG) and a section of Ghanaians who claimed they were lavishly spending money they do not have.

In a series of backlashes, the aforementioned groups claimed the NHIA has for the past few years become too much of a liability to the state to indulge in acts of kindness.

The PHFAG for instance, describe the act as “something bad and painful”…and also revealed that the NHIA owed its members “from last year July to date while others have not been paid for 14 months.”

But the NHIA in the face of such criticisms has moved to provide reasons behind their decision to willingly help the state during the period of a global pandemic.

Amongst the several reasons, the NHIA noted in a statement issued by the corporate affairs directorate that, irrespective of the significance of the GHC250,000 donation it formed less than 5 per cent of its CSR budgetary allocation for this year.

“The NHIA’s donation of GHC250,000 to the COVID Relief Fund, though significant, represents less than 5 per cent of the entire Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) budget for 2020. Indeed, it is equivalent to 0.06 per cent of funds paid in claims this year which amounts to approximately GHC400 million to health care providers claims in reimbursement,” the statement clarified.

The authority further justified that the ability to contain and eliminate the coronavirus pandemic will “eventually protect the NHIF in terms of reduced claims from service providers.”

They indicated that in other jurisdictions during periods of crisis like the coronavirus outbreak, an authority like the NHIS bears the burden in terms of expenditure but since provisions in Ghana differs, their donation was nothing but a prudent decision.

The health insurance provider has assured its stakeholders that it did not use monies meant to pay claims and arrears for the donation thus the payment of debt to its service providers still “remains the core function of the NHIA”.