*State spends N1bn monthly on pensions
*Trades words with APC on alleged politicising of pension matters
Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba
Nearly 25,000 persons displaced from communities across the state by ravaging floods in Nigeria are to benefit from the contributory health insurance scheme of the Delta State government.
The state government has also disclosed that it has intensified efforts to rescue people in hard-to-reach flooded communities.
The Director-General of the Delta State Contributory Health Commission, Dr. Ben Nkechika, who disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Asaba, at the weekend, revealed that the state government was providing the extraordinary health insurance service to residents who have been temporarily displaced from their communities purely as a humanitarian gesture meant to provide them access to free, qualify healthcare for one year.
Aside being deprived of their regular means of livelihood, most of the people, including the aged, children, lactating and expectant mothers, affected by the floods have become more susceptible to outbreak of certain diseases due to the harsh environment created by the flooding.
Nkechika said, “The Commission is an agency of government established to implement the mandatory Delta State Contributory Health Scheme which is a health care financing programme geared towards ensuring access to quality health care services for all residents of Delta state.
“The programme started in January 2017, and till date we have over 1.2 million enrollees which is the highest in the country. The scheme is powered by 500 health facilities both government and private health care facilities accredited to provide health services under the scheme.
“Part of our mandate is meeting the health needs of people and we are currently faced with a situation where some people have been displaced as a result of the flood and they are largely going to have economic challenges which has affected their ability to have quality health care.
“They have lived in very rural communities and we are registering them into the scheme through an electronic process for the family three, father mother and children.
“We issue them with an identity card and with that they are able to refer them from an IDP camp to any of the public or private health care facilities for more care beyond what the camp can provide.
“All of these services are going to be done through the Delta State Contributory Health Commission and the premium would be paid for by the state government and it means they would be attended to free of charge for one year at any of the hospitals they are referred to even when they go back to their homes.
“The biggest challenge to accessibility of healthcare for poor people is affordability, because we have seen situations where one medical challenge can wipe out a family’s earnings before the health condition is beyond what they can pay for.
“So, this programme is designed to ensure that access is available to all people. Our strategy is to ensure that wherever you are in Delta you should be able to have access to quality health services.
“The premium is just N7,000 per annum which is subsidised by the state government for those who can afford to pay but for those who cannot, the government pays for them under the equity health plan.
“We also have funding from the federal government under the basic health care provision fund which we add to our equity health plan to provide free health care services to all vulnerable people in Delta State.”
Meanwhile, Delta State said it has committed nothing less than N1 billion to the payments of pension benefits to retired civil servants in the state, saying the Okowa administration has displayed great concern for the well-being of retirees even though some of them were never employees of the state government.
The government gave the clarification during a media briefing addressed by the State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, at the weekend in Asaba.
Aniagwu frowned at frequent attempts to politicise the issue of payment of pension in the state, saying it was uncharitable for members of opposition parties in the state to paint the erroneous impression that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was shirking his responsibility to retirees from the state civil service.
Specifically, the information commissioner accused Deputy President of the Senate and Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, of masterminding retirees of the local government councils in the state to protest alleged non-payment of their different pensions and blame it on the state government headed by Governor Okowa.
“You will recall that we concluded plans to extend N10 billion grant not loan to the local government, but unfortunately the bridging finance didn’t come in but we are now taking steps to ensure that in the next couple of weeks that we are able to extend that grant to them.
“We are doing this because we believe that these persons are Deltans whether they worked for the local government or not we could still take steps in assisting them to boost not just their economy but that of the state,” he said.
However, Aniagwu said most of the retirees appreciated the efforts of the Okowa administration in helping to clear the outstanding pension liabilities but pointed accusing finger towards a certain retiree of a local government who is also an APC woman leader, alleging that she was being used to blackmail the governor.
“We have it on good authority that the All Progressives Congress (APC) have again engineered a protest that is billed to take place on Monday (today).
“She is a retired local government staff who has continued to use her position in APC to mobilise a few other persons to protest against the government on account of the issue of outstanding pension liabilities.
“This is somebody who worked for the local government and as a state government we have continued to assist our local governments to meet up with a whole number of obligations in terms of paying salaries of their workers and at the same time assisting them in defraying liabilities owed their pensioners,” he added.
Aniagwu urged the media and members of the public to ask such protesters exactly where they worked before retirement, whether local, state or federal government level.
Nevertheless, Ima Niboro, who is the spokesman of Senator Omo-Agege, described the state government’s allegation as baseless, saying the Delta APC governorship candidate could not be blamed for the decision of, “hungry pensioners” to take to the streets to protest non-payment of their entitlement.
