Insurance Authority (NHIA), will soon be hauled before court to account for an amount of GH¢4 million he allegedly signed for on December 12, 2008.
The information is contained in the final report of an NHIA internal audit intercepted by DAILY GUIDE.
The report is a 24-page document that covers the Authority’s financial operations from 2007 to 2009. It was released last month.
The audit report also contained 21 significant findings that have criminal implications for several district heads of the NHIA, and this has reportedly created growing panic among a number of top staff members of the Authority.
To this extent, the Authority’s board, in an apparent knee-jerk response, has held a marathon of crisis meetings and decided that the current CEO, Sylvester Mensah, should take 40 per cent less of what his predecessor, Ras Boateng, was taking as his salary.
Interestingly, it was the same board that approved Ras Boateng’s salary and remunerations.
NHIA sources told DAILY GUIDE that the said GH¢ 4 million, reportedly signed for by Mr. Boateng in December 2008, was not budgeted for and that payment was neither authorized by the Authority’s board nor the financial division.
The money was channeled through ECOBANK to a private agency in Accra.
According to the audit report, between 2007 and 2009, funds of the NHIA were invested at rates far below the existing interest rates, thus the Authority lost an expected GH¢ 3.16 million.
It also found that no records were maintained on proceeds from the sale of tender documents, accreditation and sale of NHIA cloths, and that this resulted in an unbanked cash of GH¢479.313, of which an amount of GH¢471 cannot be accounted for.
Another interesting find was that there had been a failure of District Mutual Health Insurance schemes to submit annual and quarterly financial reports to the Authority on a regular basis for review.
DAILY GUIDE has also gathered that a number of directors and district heads are lobbying the Authority’s legal division to drag its feet on the matter.