Former President John Dramani Mahama has advised government to exempt the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) from the Capping and Realignment Policy it is implementing to ensure that the Scheme gets the required funding.

Speaking at the 13th Annual Residential Congress of the National Health Students Association of Ghana at Korle Bu in Accra, Mr. Mahama said this would better serve the Scheme instead of the current arrangement, which unfortunately causes the NHIS to lose some of the funds they would otherwise have retained for their operations, including the payment of claims.

From less than one million subscribers under President John Agyekum Kufour, the scheme expanded to about 11 million subscribers under President Mahama whose administration used 10% of the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) from oil revenue to support the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). 

But under a Funds Capping and Realignment Act introduced by government in 2017, a percentage of the funds due the NHIS has been capped and diverted for other uses.

“Government should exempt the National Health Insurance Scheme from the Capping and Realignment so that we can have enough money to cater for the subscribers to the health insurance,” the former president advised.

The three-day Congress, which is on the theme “Quality Health Education and Sustainable Employment; Reviewing the Past and Present to Repair the Future” will end on September 28, 2019.

Mr. Mahama, who is the flagbearer of the NDC for the 2020 elections, also encouraged student movements to use student activism as a tool to achieve accelerated development. 

He noted that student movements have made valuable contributions to the progress of the country, recalling their contribution to the setting up of the Ghana Education Trust Fund, GETFund. 

“Since the establishment of the GETFund, it has been the single largest contributor to educational infrastructure in the history of Ghana,” he added.