The Federal Government on Monday received the report of the seven-man committee set up to investigate allegations of fraud against the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Professor Usman Yusuf.
Receiving the report from the chairman of the panel, Dr Bukar Hassan, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, pledged to implement the recommendations accordingly.
Recall that the Chairman on the NHIS Board, Ifenne Enyanatu, had on October 18, suspended the Executive Secretary after obtaining permission from the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole.
But the executive secretary defied the suspension and stormed the NHIS office with armed policemen, a development that prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene by constituting a seven-man Presidential Independent Fact-Finding committee to look into the matter raised by the board.
Even though the details of the report were not made available to newsmen, Mr Mustapha said the decision of the government on the recommendations of the Panel would be made public at the appropriate time.
However, our correspondent gathered that the committee had come up with impartial recommendation that would guide the federal government on its decision and the fate of the executive secretary would be revealed soon.
The committee was given two weeks to complete its assignment but the committee took more than a month to come up with the recommendations.
However, in his remark, the chairman of the panel said the delay was as a result of the large volume of documents to look into as well as a number of stakeholders to interact with.
He lamented that despite efforts by the government to discourage internal crisis within the Parastatals, especially between Governing Councils and the management, different scales of skirmishes continued to erupt from boardrooms into the public domain.
“In the course of the work, the panel had to interface with stakeholders including the Minister of Health, the Permanent Secretary, Chairman of Governing council, Unions, the National Assembly, among others.
“It is our belief and aspiration that our recommendations will reposition the scheme and proffer solutions to the challenges that have hindered the scheme in achieving its laudable objectives,’’ he said.
