From Kemi Yesufu, Kaduna

Executive-Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof. Usman Yusuf, yesterday identified years of corrupt practices within the agency for the slow pace of extending health insurance coverage beyond federal  civil servants.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a 3-day management retreat with the theme: Repositioning the National Health Insurance Scheme towards Achieving Universal Health Coverage, Yusuf said within a month in office, he had discovered that corruption in the agency was characterised by handing out political patronage to connected contractors, healthcare providers and owners of Health Management Organisations (HMOs).
According to him, the corrupt practices in the scheme, “was worse than the fuel subsidy” scam. He added that he expected that some HMOs would refund money to the NHIS.
Yusuf, while stressing that the scheme would deploy ICT to ensure accountability, especially with money spent on providing care for enrollees, further stated that henceforth, the NHIS will disengage HMOs involved in sharp practices leading to patients receiving sub-standard  service in hospitals.
He said: “When the president gave me this job, he said, ‘go and make NHIS work for all Nigerians,’, but is it working for all Nigerians? No, it has only worked well for some HMOs, healthcare providers and a few people in the NHIS. So, we as NHIS must look within our selves as we have been given a responsibility.
“The waste and impunity I see makes me want to throw-up. We can only cleanse our selves from endemic corruption, inefficiency, political patronage and most importantly, we must be good stewards of what we have been given which is the commonwealth of our people.”
Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Lanre Tejuosho, who spoke at the retreat, urged the NHIS to adopt innovations to raise funds needed to widen access to health insurance.
Also speaking at meeting, chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Health Services, Chike Okafor, disclosed plans to sponsor a bill to exclude NHIS from the Treasury Single Account (TSA), saying it’s inclusion was done despite the law establishing the agency clearly stating that part of its funding comes from contributions from enrollees.


Nigeria, UK sign MoU on return of migrants

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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The Federal Government and the United Kingdom (UK) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Immigration Returns after the proper profiling of the nationalities of migrants through the use of biometric and biographic data.
Minister of Interior, Lt Gen Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), made the disclosure at the signing of the Addendum to the 2005 MoU on Immigration Returns between Nigeria and the UK in Abuja, yesterday.
Dambazau further noted that it was a review of the initial bilateral agreement signed in 2005 between the countries on the return of irregular immigrants, as well as regular migrants who have overstayed their visas.
He said that the review agreement was informed by the new challenges that have emerged, which can only be met by reviewing the agreement, adding that such challenges include the difficulties in ascertaining “the correct nationalities of some immigrants, due to instances where their declared nationalities are at variance with their real ones, thereby creating problems with their return processes.”
The minister stated that the addendum signed concerns “the use of biometric and biographic data…and addresses the concerns of the government of Nigeria regarding the true nationalities of migrants to be repatriated, providing agreed time frames for confirmation of electronic biometric matches between our countries databases.”