This was done by collaborating with the National Investment Bank to provide e-receipting technology with on-site banking at all its district offices to reduce manual interventions in cash management and make the scheme more efficient.

President Akufo-Addo said this in a speech read on his behalf by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia at the launch of the NHIS 15th Anniversary Commemoration at the Flagstaff House in Accra.

The year 2019 marks the 15th Anniversary since the enactment of the law that begun Ghana’s journey to Universal Health Coverage (UHC).  The event was on the theme: “The Path to UHC in Ghana: Innovating for a Sustainable NHIS”.

“Fifteen years of providing access to healthcare to the people of Ghana and on the path to achieving Universal Health Coverage has not been a merry ride but we will surely get there with hard work, dedication, perseverance, patriotism and discipline,” the President stated.

“To the Management, staff and Board of the NHIA, I say a big Ayeekoo, well done for your years of service and for improving on your past achievements.” President Akufo-Addo said the digitisation of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) would help in efficient service delivery.

“Today when you go to the DVLA, digitisation has arrived. When you go to passport office, it has arrived. It is arriving at every stop as we go. We will put it all together and Ghanaians will see the full picture soon,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo said Ghana was still committed to the Abuja Declaration of assigning not less than 15 per cent of annual budgetary allocation to the health sector and was steadily making progress to achieving that.

Ghana’s NHIS continued to provide at least 80 per cent of the Internally Generated Funds (IGF) of most healthcare facilities in Ghana, and had improved the health seeking behaviour of the population.“We cannot underestimate the importance of the NHIS and its impact that is felt by every single fibre of our health system today,” he said.

He noted that Ghana’s NHIS had had its fair share of challenges that primarily borders on financial sustainability and some structural reforms. The President said the NHIS Management Team and the Ministry of Health had done a stellar job over the last two years and they deserved praise.

He said the Government would continue to be innovative to deliver better financial arrangements for the NHIS towards the full attainment of UHC in Ghana.“Today, 15 years on, though active membership of the scheme has been growing, it has since 2015 stagnated around the coverage of about 37 per cent of the population, which means a lot more must be done to remove the bottlenecks that have saddled the Scheme to enable it to increase its membership for the attainment of UHC”.