After a recent period of suspension of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Mohammed Sambo, the Executive Secretary, NHIS has appealed to the Service to ensure that payments are constant, timely and upfront, saying the Scheme is a prepaid programme.
This, Sanbo said, will guarantee that officers of the Customs Service and their dependants receive from the healthcare providers, appropriate quality of care that will meet enrollee expectations.
According to a statement by Ayo Osinlu Head, Media and Public Relations NHIS, Sambo made the appeal when he led a delegation of his management on a visit to the Customs boss in Abuja.
The NHIS boss said the visit was to provide opportunity for the leadership of the two critical government agencies to undertake a joint appraisal of the relationship of the institutions, in order to improve their mutual benefits.
He reiterated that health insurance remains the only instrument for the achievement of the 2030 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria, with special reference to the universal health coverage, which he described as a global agenda with strategic local significance for Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
This, he said, informs the increasing efforts of NHIS in the area of sensitisation and advocacies to organisations in both the public and private sectors to enrol their employees
While commending the Customs Service for constant release of contributions on behalf of its officers and men after a period of their recent suspension, Sambo used the occasion to announce that the Scheme has transferred NCS enrolees to their preferred HMO, Songhai Health Trust.
He stated that NHIS will monitor closely to ensure that officers of the Service and their dependants receive no less than the quality of care defined by the Scheme’s Operational Guidelines for its enrollees.
He also assured the Comptroller General that NHIS is ready at all times to carry out mop-up registration and sensitization for NCS operatives and their dependants across the country, through the Scheme’s field officers in the zones and states. He however, urged close collaborations between the sister agencies for smooth implementation of that process.
Sambo extolled the leadership and transparency traits of the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Colonel Hammed Ali (rtd), to which he ascribed the sterling performance of the Custom Service under him.
The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Colonel Hameed Ali, on the occasion, assured the Scheme that the Customs Service is a law-abiding government institution, ascribing the hitches in the transactions of the two agencies in the past to negligence on the part of both agencies.
He therefore recommended for officers of both organisations to start joint appraisals immediately, to determine the actual obligations of the service to NHIS.
Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja
