Mr Kasimu Abudulai, Acting Upper East Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has appealed to District Assemblies to assist the Authority with office accommodation.
He commended the Builsa North Municipal Assembly, under the leadership of Madam Vida Akantagriwen Anaab, the Chief Executive Officer for constructing an office for the Authority, and appealed to other Assemblies, specifically the Bongo District Assembly to emulate the gesture.
‘In fact, I would want to appeal to the Bongo District Assembly to allocate an office space for operations of the Authority since the Bongo office is not spacious and deteriorated. It simply does not accommodate our operations,’ he said.
Mr Abudulai said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sideline of a blood donation exercise organized by the Authority at the Zamse Senior High Technical School in the Bolgatanga Municipality as part of activities to mark the Authority’s 20th Anniversary celebrations.
He acknowledged that th
ough the Authority had the mandate to provide office accommodation for staff, which management had not relented on, the offices being used needed more space.
‘So, it is not easy to give all office buildings. We in the Upper East are even more privileged. We have had three new buildings in the Upper East within the past five years.
‘Bawku West, Tempane and Pusiga have all received new buildings from the Authority and will be commissioned by the Chief Executive Officer himself before the end of November,’ he said.
Mr Abudulai said the Authority had challenges with office accommodation in Builsa North Municipality and the Bongo District, ‘Now that of the Builsa North is out, we are now appealing to the Bongo District.’
He noted that even though the office in Navrongo, in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality was specious, it was in a deplorable state, and needed urgent renovation.
‘We do not have much to ensure that all these things are kept in place. We appeal to the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly to help t
o renovate the place. The office is spacious, but at least, if we can get it renovated, it will help in our operations,’ he said.
He said the key role of the Authority is to pay claims, ‘And you know how utilization of health facilities have increased, coupled with how inflation has affected things. Therefore, we pay all our monies to claims to ensure that the hospitals have good cash flow to run.
Asked why the newly constructed Builsa North office for the Authority was not commissioned for use, several months after its construction, Mr Abudulai said there were a few final additions to be made before they moved in.
‘NHIA is fully digital; everything is based on Information Technology so there are few things we need to do. The type of electrical wiring done by the contractor does not meet our minimum requirements, so we need to rewire the building,’ he said.
He said they also needed to network their cables to allow them to configure their Local Area Network (LAN), relocate their satellite dish, which are t
he receivers of signals from its present location to the new building.
‘We must relocate our power plant to the new building, knowing the nature of power outages in Sandema. Then also, we must drop three phases of the national grid to the building,’ he said.
The Acting Director added that the building was on a low-lying area which needed to be filled with gravel to raise it, and water to be connected before they could occupy the building, ‘We have already provided estimates of all these works to Head Office, they have considered it.
‘An Estate Manager will visit there to assess the place, engage some contractors and hopefully, before the end of this November, the work will be given to a Contractor to execute. Hopefully, before the end of the year, we may move in,’ Mr Abudulai said.
Source: Ghana News Agency