The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) has served notice it would petition Parliament over the National Health Insurance Authority’s plans to increase the levy on the salaries of formal sector workers to fund the country’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
According to the ICU, the proposed increment is unacceptable.
The NHIA recently announced plans to hike the Health Insurance levy by 1% moving it from 2.5% to 3.5%. currently, former workers pay 2.5% of their 17.5% contribution from the tier one pension fund to run the NHIS.
Also in May last year, when the management of the NHIA appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) they proposed a 1% levy to be slapped on alcohol and tobacco to fund the NHIS.
This, according to the Authority, will help it raise enough funds and increase its subscriber base.
The General Secretary of the ICU, Solom Kotei however, argued otherwise urging the Authority to instead of increasing the levy, the it should focus on closing the loopholes in its to increase revenue.
“There have been a lot of malfeasance going on at the NHIA which its investigations have not been known to us,” he told Accra based private radio station Citi FM.
He continued, “We were informed that a lot of people have run away with some quantum of money. Are they going to concentrate and retrieve those monies or it’s gone for good? We have people who are benefiting from the NHIS who don’t contribute anything to it. I’m referring to people from Cote d’ivoire, Togo, Nigeria…who are in here….”
Calling on the Authority to get the “typical” informal sector to also contribute to the running of the NHIS, he asked “is it because by reason of our contribution to Social Security then you come to us on that again?”
Asked if the Union will petition Parliament over the Authority’s move, he replied “exactly.”
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