Eliminate statutory funds transfer bottlenecks for apt service delivery
Indisputably, delay in statutory payments had been an albatross on the neck of the government, because of claims and counter-claims by agencies at the centre of such important transfers.
Statutory payments are transfers into statutory funds, established by law for specific purposes, aimed at tackling social, economic and developmental challenges.
Currently, the funds are disbursed for the operations of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), to ensure access to healthcare without any financial barriers, and the Ghana Education Fund (GETFund), to accelerate education infrastructure development.
Others are Road Fund, to facilitate rehabilitation and maintenance of key road infrastructure, and the District Assemblies Common Fund, to facilitate development and service delivery at the grassroots, to alleviate poverty and check rural-urban migration.
As the name implies, these transfers are compulsory because they are backed by legislation, and also accrued from levies imposed on the citizenry, to be used for specific purposes, key to the survival and well-being of the citizenry, in effect national prosperity.
The significant role these payments play in the country’s human and infrastructure development, is enormous, and require their timely transfer into the statutory funds for onward disbursement to implementing bodies.
The claims of delay in payment and or non-payment, is counterproductive and draw back to national development.
There is the lamentation that some healthcare providers are not able to render quality service to clients or patients because of reports of non-payment of claims, thereby putting the lives of people that authorities are expected to save, at risk.
For instance congestion and lack of adequate infrastructure in schools are the consequences of the fact that either the coffers of the GETFund are meager or empty because of delay in payment of monies to the statutory fund.
Regrettably, the long-standing complaints from healthcare providers about delay in reimbursements from the NHIS had often threatened the sustainability of healthcare delivery across the country.
Some roads are also in deplorable state due to inadequate resources in the Roads Fund for rehabilitation and maintenance works, to facilitate socio-economic activities.
We do not seek to belabour the lamentation, but to express excitement about the assurance from the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Thomas Nyarko Ampem, that the claims and counter claims of delay and non-payment of moneys into the statutory funds, are now a thing of the past.
He gave the promise at the 50th anniversary gathering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), School of Medical Sciences, on Tuesday.
The Ghanaian Times in today’s issues quotes the deputy minister as saying “Transfers to the NHIS and other statutory funds will be done promptly going forward, especially to ensure that institutions like the National Health Insurance Authority can function efficiently and deliver services without delay”.
He also affirmed that already GH¢1.4 billion had been transferred to the NHIS this year for timely delivery of service by service providers to clients.
The paper, therefore, suspects that apart from delay in statutory payments, and claims and counter-claims by agencies over delay or non-payments, administrative and bureaucratic inertia and lapses, are part of the challenge
It behooves government agencies at the heart of this statutory transfers to approach their work with urgency and fast-track these transfers for fast service delivery.
The best way to improve tax compliance and revenue mobilisation is timely and prompt resources allocation for the execution of plans, programmes and projects, for the well-being of the citizenry.