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Unapproved fees affecting NHIS patronage in UER
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The demand for unapproved fees from patients by some health facilities in the Upper West Region is said to be affecting patronage of the National Health Insurance Scheme in the area.
Mr. Samuel Lekamwe Lobber, Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) brought this to the fore at an End-of-Year Performance Review Meeting held in the region recently.
He said that such illegal fees made clients to lose confidence in the Scheme and asked those health institutions involved to stop.
“Illegal charges remain the biggest headache to the NHIA in the region and it is affecting our efforts to mobilise more clients because if someone goes for healthcare and is asked to make payment for a condition that is already covered, that experience will not encourage them to renew their commitment with the scheme.
“Some of these health facilities charge unapproved fees for which they do not even issue receipts and still make claims to the authority for reimbursement”, he explained.
He indicated that the thought of having to pay for petty things such as folders and laboratory tests at health facilities discouraged some people from registering under the scheme as they did not value the services of the insurance scheme.
Mr Lobber said the fact that such people even went back to discuss their experiences at the health centres with others could further discourage several others from joining the scheme.
He appealed to health facilities across the region to be guided by the ethics of their profession which was to deliver quality healthcare.
He explained that to partly tackle this issue, a new feature would be added to the mobile renewal platform which allow the authority to confirm from patients if they had visited a particular health facility for health care services or not.
This feature, he said, would help check false claims tendered in by some health facilities and also reduce the rate of charging illegal fees.
The Director appealed to their clients to make use of the mobile renewal platform to check for drugs and services they were entitled at the health centre in order to avoid falling victim to the illegal charges.
He used the opportunity to commend staff of the authority for working harder to ensure that they attained 80 percent coverage of clients and said the move was to enhance access to universal health coverage by residents of the region.
The meeting which was on the theme “Sustaining our gains for universal health coverage- a collective responsibility” brought together former and current stakeholders of the authority to consolidate gains, share ideas and experiences and also chart the way forward.
From Lydia Darlington Fordour, Wa
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged the government to place all 54,985 candidates affected by the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) placement exercise in schools and publish the final outcome.
The party says the government must ensure that the affected candidates secure actual school places rather than merely being allowed to access the self-placement portal.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of the NPP Policy Co-ordination Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the party expressed concern about the situation facing the candidates.
The NPP said the government had announced that 53,887 of the affected candidates could use the self-placement system after initially being told that they had not qualified for secondary school.
It, however, argued that access to the portal did not guarantee that candidates would secure their preferred schools or programmes.
“Ghanaian parents and candidates will judge the resolution of the challenge by one thing only: how many of the original 54,985 are sitting in a classroom, not how many were allowed to open a website,” the statement noted.
The party said the government’s own figures showed that the country had 859,828 declared vacancies for 623,072 BECE candidates.
It explained that the main challenge was the concentration of demand in a small number of highly subscribed schools.
The NPP noted that 313,283 candidates selected Category A schools as their first choice, while those schools had 76,417 declared vacancies.
It therefore called on the government to explore ways to improve schools with available spaces, including providing teachers, laboratories and better programmes.
The party urged the government to use the 85 private schools participating in the Free SHS programme to absorb candidates who remained without placements.
The NPP further called for clarification of the rule and pass mark used for this year’s placement exercise, saying parents were entitled to know the standard before their children sat the examination.
It urged the government to take urgent action to ensure that the affected candidates were not left behind in the transition to secondary education.
By: Jacob Aggrey
General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Justin Kodua Frimpong, has filed his nomination to contest the position of General Secretary again as the party begins its rebuilding efforts ahead of the 2028 general elections.
He was accompanied by party stalwarts and supporters who were in high spirits, expressing confidence that he is the right person to hold the position.
Speaking after filing his nomination, Mr Kodua Frimpong assured the rank and file of the party that he would not disappoint them.
“I can assure you that the faith the rank and file of the party have had in me, I will never disappoint them,” he said.
He also pledged to run a clean campaign devoid of personal attacks.
“I can assure you that our internal campaign will be devoid of personal attacks,” he told his fellow contestants and the rank and file of the party as he seeks to retain his position.
His tenure has seen the party through the 2024 general elections, where the NPP lost power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after eight years in government.
The party is currently in a rebuilding phase, with internal elections scheduled to elect new national executives to lead its reorganization towards the 2028 polls.
The General Secretary position is considered one of the most influential in the party’s administrative structure, responsible for the day-to-day running of the party secretariat and implementation of party decisions.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
