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- Enrollment targets 534,000
From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State Government has promised to fulfilled all its obligations made to the Kebbi State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (KECHEMA) to ease the cost of health services by the vulnerable citizens of the state.
State Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu stated this during the inauguration and flag-off of the formal sector enrolment exercise into KECHEMA in Birnin Kebbi.
Bagudu, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Umar Babale Yauri, assured the Management, Staff and Stakeholders that the state government would not fail in implementing all the commitments made towards the success of the scheme in the state.
According to him, “I want to commend the management and staff of this agency for working hard, tiredness to ensure the success of the scheme in the state and its general acceptability. The high cost of health services led to the inaccessibility of the service by low-income earners. Only the Contributory Health Scheme could help us and make health services equitable to help each other.
“It is also one of the pillars of our religion, Islam and Christianity, that assisting each other is one of the fundamentals of the faith. The high and top officers should try to subsidies health insurance scheme so that the lower income earners could benefit from it.”
Bagudu also noted that the inauguration of the formal sector into the scheme would bridge up the gap between the poor and the rich when citizens could access health services at any level.
He said, “At this juncture, the state government will meet up with its obligations on the quota given to the state government so that the larger number of people will be benefited.”
It could be recalled that the state government are expected to contribute 10 percentage the basic salary to be contributed by the employers, as well as an equity fund, comprises of 2% CRF of Kebbi State,2% contracts sum of all contracts in the state with 1% CRF of LGAs, donations from philanthropists IPs, BHCPF, among others.
In his remark, Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Jafar Muhammad, who commended the State government for implementing the scheme in the state, stressed that the action of the present administration has started yielding good results as low-income earners are accessing health services easily across the state.
He noted that with 4,800 per year, enrolment of people into KECHEMA has continued to swell, while hospitals are collaborating with the referral agency in the state.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of KECHEMA, Dr Jafar Augie Muhammad disclosed that the agency targeted over 534,000 people after the inauguration of informal and formal sectors with about 89,000 principals.
Muhammad said that: “About 89,000 principals so far. Before, it was 87,000 before the enrolment of principals. Under the state government, we have 21,337 civil servants, from UBE, and 21 Local Government Areas, we have 22,000 above and 23,000 above civil servants. If you add them up, we are having 89,000 civil servants that are principals. When you multiply the figures by 6, you will see that KECHEMA will be having over 534,000.”
In this remark, the Acting Head of Service, Alhaji Sofiyanu Garbage Bena recalled how he forwarded the request for a deduction of 3 per cent from civil servants’ salaries into KECHEMA to the state Governor, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu which was approved by him without delays.
Bena said that the benefit of the scheme to the civil servants are so enormous ranging from quality health services delivery to accessible healthcare across the state, stressed that, the scheme would put an end to high blood pressure common among civil servants since they would be going for regular medical checkups.
The Representatives of Traditional Rulers, Galadima Gwandu Emirate, Alhaji Ibrahim Bashar commended the State government and KECHEMA for the introduction of the scheme in the state and stressed that the traditional rulers acknowledged their efforts in changing the health delivery service among their subjects.
The event was also attended by the NLC Chairman, Comrade Murtala Usman, and USAID representative, Dr Aisha Sechi, among others.
