Acting Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Femi Akingbade has said that high charges and administrative challenges is the behind the failure of the National Mobile Health Insurance Programme.
Akingbade said, “We record delivery failure because the stakeholders seem not to totally agree with the payments and fees that accrue to them, based on the agreed distribution of the funds being contributed.
“We discovered that because of the mobile network operators that are involved, there are sundry official charges they need to pay and much of the fees go into administrative charges – one of the things we are trying to check.”
He explained that the MHI requires the NHIS to tap into the teledensity of nearly 120 million Nigerians registered on mobile networks although the data is stored by theby the Nigerian Communications Commission.
He said “This is what slowed down the process, but we are working at it. We are currently negotiating with the NCC to release the database for us so as to save time and cost.
“If somebody that owns a phone line wants to register for NMHIP, we need the data so that we don’t start to capture new biometric data.”
Akingbade noted that there is a need to collaborate with the NCC, the National Identity Management Corporation, Mobile Network Operators, and other agencies that manage identity in the country and ensure the success of the Mobile Health Insurance Scheme.