The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr Kelechi Ohiri as the Director-General of, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).
The confirmation followed the presentation of a report by the Senate Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary) during the plenary session.
Presenting the report, the chairperson of the committee, Sen. Banigo Ipalibo (PDP-Rivers West) recalled that the Senate considered President Bola Tinubu’s request for the confirmation of Ohiri’s nomination on Feb. 14.
He said it was after this that the Senate referred the request to the committee for further legislative action.
Ipalibo said the committee carefully scrutinised the Curriculum Vitae presented by the nominee and ascertained that he was qualified and suitable for the job.
“The nominee is well experienced and adequately exposed at the top international and domestic levels and has the capacity to function as the director-general of the NHIA,” Ipalibo added.
In his remarks, President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio urged Ohiri to continue to apply his wisdom and expertise on the job to move the nation forward.
National Health Insurance Scheme is a body set up by Decree 35, of 1999 (now Act 35) operating as Public Private Partnership and directed at providing accessible, affordable and qualitative healthcare for all Nigerians.
- The Scheme shall be responsible for issuing appropriate guidelines to maintain the viability of the Scheme [section 6(b)]
- The Scheme shall be responsible for advising on the continuous improvement of quality of services provided under the Scheme through guidelines issued by the Standard Committee established under section 45 of this Act [section 6(g)]
- The council shall have the power to set guidelines for effective co-operation with other organizations to promote the objectives of the Scheme [section 7(f)]
On May 24th, 2022, it was officially gazetted by the Federal Government of Nigeria as the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA)
On the 19th of May, 2022 The NHIA ACT was ENACTED by the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria—
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