Upper West workers oppose plans for funding NHIS

Wa, Aug. 16, GNA- Workers in the Upper West Region on Friday rejected the government's proposal to use two-and-a-half percent of workers contributions to the SSNIT to fund the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

In a resolution adopted at the end of a regional consultative forum on the National Health Insurance Bill at Wa, the workers urged the government to look for other sources for funds and leave their contributions intact.


"We are already faced with high utility tariffs, high taxes with low incomes and meagre pensions under SSNIT after retirement. The SSNIT pension should be adjusted upwards, and not tampered with to fund any health scheme", the resolution said.


Representatives from the various labour unions under the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT0, Civil Servants Association and the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana throughout the region attended the forum.


The resolution called on the government to introduce a Health Insurance Fund to operate like GETFund where two and half percent from the remaining ten percent of Value Added Tax could be lodged to fund the scheme.


The workers also suggested other sources of funding including an increase in the Customs and Excise Duties on luxury goods such as imported luxurious cars, imported food items, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages.

They also called for the use of part of HIPC funds and tax relief, as seed money for the scheme.


The Health Insurance Bill should recognise existing schemes and encourage all institutions and companies to do so without making it compulsory for them to join the national scheme, the workers added. They again asked the government to establish a lottery to mobilise funds for the scheme.


Mr Daniel Antwi, General Secretary of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the TUC assured the workers that the leadership would never allow the government to use their SSNIT contributions to fund the scheme although they were not opposed to the scheme. He said 900,000 contributors could not fund an insurance scheme for 18 million Ghanaians.


The TEWU General Secretary noted that the council, which is expected to supervise the scheme as proposed in the Bill was too large because it would have regional and district secretariats and wondered where the money to fund those bodies would come from.


Mr Antwi announced that representatives of the workers front would meet in Accra next week to deliberate on views gathered from workers throughout the country and come out with an alternative to the funding of the scheme.