SYLVESTER MENSAH CEO OF NHIS AND HIS PARTY NDC REGISTERS FOREIGNERS IN NHIS SPECIAL REGISTRATION EXERCISE The Student Network for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (STUNNAD) has raised alarm that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is embarking on another rigging tactics in the Volta, Central and Upper West regions through mass National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) registration. According to the students, they had information that people from Togo and Burkina-Faso are being transported through Manuso borders including Honuta, Shianu Leklebi, Aflao, Batema junction all in the Volta region for free NHIS registration in order to issue them voters ID cards. In a statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by its National President and Organiser, Mr. Chris Arthur and Justice Adu Asiedu, and copied to Today, the group noted that an electoral officer in Volta region who is not in support of this “evil plot” confidently disclosed that a Togolese town known as Kpadzahor, which shares border with a Ghanaian town, Afegame, in the Kpetoe-ziope district, is being used as one of the numerous towns to register foreigners. “In 2008, I was the registration officer there and I happened to witness what transpired there. Many Togolese marched from the north to the south to be registered as voters there including children under 18 years. I tried my best to prevent it but I was threatened with death,” the official claimed. About 70% of residents at Kpadzahor who are Togolese have been registered under the NHIS. They indicated that the official also maintained that when he later feigned interest and enquired about this illegal activity, he was informed that the free registration there was sponsored by the member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Juliana Azumah-Mensah, who is alleged to be running a promotion to register people freely under the scheme and paying them GH¢5.00 each. Now they have started again with the help of the districts NHIS officers and the MP.” “At the Polling Station called EP Church Number 1 Code D100103 in Kpetoe, a woman came with a health insurance card from Agohome, a small town in Togo, to register as a voter. After interviewing her as a registration officer, I found out that she is a Togolese. …I reported the case to the police commander and the lady confirmed that she was from Togo and the health insurance authorities came to register them and asked them to use the card for voter’s registration. …she informed “us that they were many but have spread around other centers,” the statement revealed. According to the statement, the Akpokope Primary School polling station recorded one of the major frauds in the 2012 registration in the whole Kpetoe-ziope District. Motor bikes were used to convey “Togolese to the registration center and I was made to understand that anybody who gets registered was paid.” Interestingly, according to the statement, these people were paid by one of the chiefs in the district. Information got to us that the boys who were aiding the registration were as also paid and given lunch as well. Two days to the end of the registration I went there to witness a massive fraud where people were loaded in a tipper truck and brought to the center to register.” In the central region, the statement said there is a house in Agona Swedru where people from Mali are being housed for free registrations of NHIS cards and voter’s cards. “STUNNAD has gathered that about 73 of these Malians were given free NHIS cards in Agona West NHIS office. The distribution is done between the late hours of 7:00 pm to 10:30 P.M., alone.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 15:12:55 +0000