Parliament reconvenes today

A number of bills including the Legislative Instrument on the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS and the Domestic Violence Bill are expected to be top on the agenda when Parliament reconvenes today after its recess. Both documents are yet to be forwarded to the House for consideration.

During recess, the House was called to debate on a request by the Interior Minister, Hackman Owusu Agyemang for an extension of the state of emergency in parts of the Dagbon Traditional Area of Northern Ghana.

The Finance and Economic Planning Ministry had earlier confirmed its intention to send the Legislative Instrument (LI) covering the details of the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to Parliament during the next sitting of the House.

A bank account has been opened with the Bank of Ghana where proceeds from the levy of two and half per from the Value Added Tax (VAT) rates would be paid into the account.

Additionally the two-and-half per cent of workers' Social Security and National Insurance Trust contributions would be paid into the same account. Subsequently, the Director-General of SSNIT had been written to, by Finance Ministry to that effect.

With the coming into force of the LI, the VAT rates would go up from 12 and half per cent to 15 per cent, with two-and-half per cent of the rates going into the National Health Insurance Fund, as from 1 August 2004.

Parliament on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 passed the NHIS Bill, which would put in place a mechanism that would enable residents in the country to obtain at least basic health care services without having to pay any money at the point of delivery of service. Residents of those areas are required to seek membership of the scheme in the districts in order to obtain the basic health care benefits.

The government in March 2004, during the launch of the Health Insurance Scheme, proposed that every Ghanaian adult in the informal sector should contribute a minimum of ?6,000 per month towards the National Health Insurance Scheme.

This amount, totalling ?72,000 per annum, is about the equivalent of ?74,000 per annum for the least paid person in the formal sector based on the 2.5 per cent of workers contribution to the SSNIT.