The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has dispelled claims by Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, that poor financial management is collapsing the Scheme.

This, the NHIA noted, represents “approximately 54% of Ghana’s population at the end of 2021.”

Mr Akando, in a statement on Tuesday, accused government of derailing from the objective of the National Health Insurance Scheme, and plundering it into a state of ‘medical comatose’.

According to the Juaboso lawmaker, the Scheme needs immediate measures to redeem and prevent it from sinking.

He also criticised the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, for failing to report to Parliament on the Scheme every six months as required by Section 52 (1) of the Act that regulates the NHIS.

But in response to these claims, NHIA said the “application of standard accounting reporting principles by the NHIA, an amount of ¢1,266.14 million was treated as payment for liabilities of the government to the NHIA.

This left an amount of ¢127 million, which was attributed to the 2021 financial year in the standard accounting reporting framework.

“Collections of the National Health Insurance Levies (NHIL) into the Consolidated Fund occur over a period and therefore releases into the NHIF may delay sometimes.

“In the Allocation Formula approved by the Parliament on April 5, 2022, an amount of ¢1,393.14 million was duly referenced as the total amount released by the Ministry of Finance into the NHIF within the year 2021.”