House query NHIS N152m on hand sanitizers, facemasks, gloves in 2020

*Spends over N2m on Diesel monthly, 2.2m on toners

Tom Okpe, Abuja

The House of Representatives on Monday expressed dissatisfaction with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) for spending N152.48 million on face masks, hand sanitizers, protective wears and hand gloves to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The Agency also spent at least N2.48 million on diesel on monthly basis for its head office in Utako, Abuja and office annex in Wuse 11, Abuja.

It also, spent the sum of N49.20 million on what it called vital contributors programme for hosting support of the online websites and functionalities in March, 2020, procured 8,000 litres of diesel for the Head Office in Abuja at N2.48 million while there was another supply of 8000 litres of diesel for its Office at Wuse 2, Abuja at the cost of N2.40 million.

This was revealed at the House Committee on Finance, uncovering these expenses at a hearing organised for some Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to determine remittances into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Questions were raised by members of the Committee during the hearing on the expenditures, requesting explanation from the NHIS Executive Secretary, Mohammed Sambo who appeared before the panel.

Sambo in his response submitted that the Agency provided COVID-19 protection items under its Corporate Social Responsibility for some social workers on the frontline, including the Nigeria Police Force and Nigerian Security, Civil Defence Corps and Hospitals.

He said: “On the huge expenditure to tunes of millions with respect to the COVID-19 items, we are National Health Insurance Scheme, we are supposed to be a strategic purchasing agency by mandate.

“During COVID-19 scourge, there was a plan of the Ministry of Health on sectoral response to Covid-19 and because we are dealing with healthcare facilities, we all know that at the beginning of COVID-19, most of the healthcare workers abandoned their duty post because they don’t have items for their protection.

As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility, we identified first line organizations like police and others.

“All the documents are available if the lawmakers need them. So this expenditure is not restrictive to NHIS. We have been directed to ensure the protection of our people.

“On electricity, we all know last year, there has been a lot of erratic supply of electricity. We have a big office in Utako and in Wuse. In our office in Wuse, we had to maintain a cooling system.

“We have huge infrastructure that requires cooling.
As we are improving our infrastructure now, we are talking about the level of electricity that are being consumed in future.

All the expenditure in respect to COVID, some of the MDAs wrote to PTF that they need these items , they wrote to us.

“In respect to the toners, NHIS has a total of 38 state offices, 9 zonal offices as well as two offices at Abuja. So, when we are buying these items, we are not buying them as one toner per purchase. We buy them within the threshold to furnish the state and zonal offices.”

The Executive Secretary had earlier stated that monies generated from addition of extra dependants enrollee in 2019 was N33.81 million;

N12.88 million in 2020 while N6.8 million has so far been generated in 2021, admitting that N47.35 million was generated in 2019;

N45.5 million in 2020 and N11.49 million so far in 2021 from the accreditation and registration of Health Management Organizations, (HMOs).

He also said the agency has generated N1.61 million in 2019; N620,000 in 2020 and N700,000 so far in 2021 from the tenders paid by contractors.

“The total revenue generation for 2019 was N32.14 million, for 2020 is N58.9 million and 2021, N18.5 million.

“We remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund the sum of N20.5 million which represent 25 per cent for the total revenue for 2019, we have remitted N14.7 million which represents 25 per cent for 2020 and for 2021, remitting N4.46 million.

We have available, evidences of remittances encapsulated in this submission,” he said.

Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Saidu Abdullahi who stood in for the Chairman, James Faleke in his observation said the hearing was not to witch hunt any Agency but to shoot up the revenge generation of the country.

Abdullahi stated that the Committee would not hesitate to invoke the relevant provisions of the law should any agency of government fail to appear before the Committee.

“We have just started the revenue monitoring session for the year 2021. The objective is to ensure that we shore up the revenge generation of the country, as I stated that the country has the capacity to fund the budget size of 13 to 15 trillion.

“All we need to do is to work together with the executive particularly the MDAs to ensure that we block all areas of leakages and ensure there are responsible, consolidated revenue fund.

“We are not here to make noise or impress anybody by showing our faces on camera. We are taking it very serious.

It is in the spirit of measuring the performances of the agencies, in the spirit of ensuring that we mobilize more resources so that the executive would be able to fund the capital without necessarily looking at the angle of borrowing which has become the easiest way of managing our budget.

“So, we expected to have Petroleum Equalization Fund, PTDF, Nigeria Oil Spillage and Detection response Agency and even the Export Processing Council. But only NHIS turned up. We would not take it lightly with any agency.

“It is not a child’s play. We are here to make this country work and we have to work in collaboration, we have to wok collectively for the good of our people.”

The Chairman said a second chance will be given to agencies that failed yo turn up saying, “we will write again to them and if peradventure they decide not to turn up, we will have no other option than to refer back to the provisions of the constitution and do what is necessary for this country,” he added.

He directed NHIS to furnish it with other relevant documents, such as its budget for the year 2021 from where it will be able to deduce whether or not the Scheme’s personnel are paid from the Federation Account or through its ideal sources.