… Accuses administration of selling bungalows to cronies
Posted: The Chronicle |Thursday, February 04, 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) yesterday accused the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of causing the barrage of attacks on the credibility and personality of its current Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sylvester Mensah.
According to the authority, “but for this greedy sale of government properties by the previous NPP government, the incumbent NDC administration would not be renting residential premises for its appointees.”
Speaking at a news conference in Accra yesterday, in response to speculations about the activities and operations of the Authority, which has been in the spotlight for the last couple of days, the deputy Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Direction of the NHIA, Eric Ametor-Quarmyne, said, “if the former government was not driven by greed to sell government bungalows, the issue of official accommodation for CEOs like that of the NHIA, would not have been an issue today.”
This, he said, was evident in the fact that before the Kufuor administration took over the reigns of power in the year 2001, the government had over 100 bungalows within Accra.
He however noted that the “non-commonsensical sale of these bungalows to NPP functionaries, has left only 52 of them,” stressing, “Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey is still fighting in court to own a government bungalow, which is jut a two-munite drive away from the NHIA office premises.”
Since the inception of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2004, the Authority said there had not been any official residence for its chief executives.
They were thus compelled to write to the Ministry of Works and Housing for the allocation of one government bungalow for development into a duty post accommodation for its Chief Executive.
However, Ametor-Quarmyne said the Authority was told there was none, saying, “meanwhile the NPP government was busy selling those same bungalows to themselves, party executives, their friends and cronies.”
The matter of duty post accommodation for the CEO of the Authority was succinctly captured in an official memorandum sent by the Director of Administration to the Chairman of the NHIA Council on July 15, 2009, part of which read as follows, “the NHIA does not have an official accommodation to serve as duty post for its chief executives. Perhaps, the required urgency has not been attached to the matter of securing a duty post accommodation for chief executives of the NHIA, because two successive chief executives of the NHIA had been on secondment to the NHIA from other public institutions, which offered them official accommodation during their tenure at the NHIA.”
This, according to the Authority, was the reason why the NHIA Council decided to rent an official duty accommodation for the current CEO, since he was the first ‘independent’ CEO of the organisation.
The Authority said that the amount and figures being bandied around as monies used in securing accommodation for its CEO, cannot in anyway be compared to those offered to other chief executives of state institutions of similar standing in the country.
The Authority also dispelled rumours about the salary of its CEO, Mr. Sylvester Mensah, which it said was much lower than those of most other CEOs in analogous state institutions.
In comparison with the salary of the immediate past Chief Executive of the NHIA, Mr. Mensah is said to be currently receiving 65% of what Mr. Ras Boateng used to receive when he was the CEO of the Authority.
Under the current circumstance, the Authority says Mr. Mensah receives no other allowances currently, stressing, “the same Board which applied discretion in approving the rental of a duty post accommodation for the CEO, was the same Board that approved a cut of 35% in the salary of Mr. Sylvester Mensah, as compared with that of Mr. Ras Boateng.”
“Currently, Mr. Mensah does not enjoy any other allowance, aside of receiving a cut in salary, compared to the exorbitant salaries the Kufuor administration paid its staff,” stressed Ametor-Quarmyne.
Instead, he said that since he took over as CEO of the NHIA in June 2009, Mr. Sylvester Mensah has instituted far-reaching reforms, indicating that “during the past seven months of his being in office, the prudent management reforms and judicious use of the tax payers’ money have resulted in a mighty expenditure savings of 53% of the Authority’s budget for last year, translating into an amount of GH¢6,451,267 or ¢64,512,670,000.”
He therefore asked rhetorically, “how can such a person now be portrayed as a spendthrift, can only be the wildest imagination of someone on a mission of mischief and a smear campaign.”
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