Audio Attachment:Listen to the Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Direction of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Eric Ametor Quarmyme.
Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Direction of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Eric Ametor Quarmyme.
Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Direction of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Eric Ametor Quarmyme, says since 2004, the financial accounts of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), has not been audited, resulting in various forms of mishandling of state funds, accounting or avoidable losses.
According to Mr. Quarmyme, “because there was no such internal audits, most staff at the Authority were left on their own to do as they pleased.”
To reverse this trend, he revealed, the Authority is carrying out strict accounting practices such as financial internal auditing of its accounts, aside several other measures.
“Apart from financial auditing we have also instituted what is called clinical auditing to see whether the claims submitted by service providers reflected in the budgetary they were claiming…There have been several outrageous findings since the beginning of the auditing in 2009, immediately Mr. Sylvester Mensah took office,” Mr. Ametor Quarmyme disclosed in an interview on Joyfm.
He described as rash and premature media speculations that some former personnel of the NHIA will soon be hauled before court to answer charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state following findings contained in an audit report commissioned by the Authority.
“What has happened is the internal audit which has unearthed these malpractices which has gone to the press prematurely,” he stated.
Commenting on recent publications by the “Searchlight” newspaper reports alleging misapplication of funds by the NHIA, Mr. Ametor Quarmyme, said though the Authority has no intention of suing the Searchlight newspaper, its Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Sylvester Mensah, has the absolute right to do so.
According to him, he has not come across any documentation that cited the authorities’ intention to sue the searchlight newspaper.
Mr. Ametor Quarmyme opined that publications by the Searchlight, from January to early February this year, were done with the intention to undermine the good name of the CEO in the person of Mr. Sylvester Mensah and the NHIA as a whole.
“I am not sure and I have not seen any preparations to sue the Searchlight, but indeed if the Searchlight’s publication malign and scandalizes the CEO who was the centre of this publication, that gentleman has all the freedom in this world to sue and clear his good name,” he said. “As an authority,” he continued, “I have not come across any documentation that the NHIA is suing the paper but Mr. Mensah has got the freedom in this world to sue the paper to clear his good name,” he added.
