The Cross River State Government has set up a taskforce to check the utilisation of health insurance funds in the state.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Henry Egbe Ayuk, said the government set up the taskforce due to cases of misappropriation of funds in the health sector.
The taskforce is to fish out those suspected of misappropriating funds meant for medical issues.
Ayuk disclosed this while inaugurating the taskforce during the weekend, noting that it was in exercise of his role as Chairman of the State Oversight Committee of the Insurance Agency.
According to him, the committee is empowered to ensure adequate management of health insurance resources, among others.
He stated that the misappropriation cuts across both federal and state health insurance gateways.
The commissioner explained that the taskforce is an independent team meant to examine the expenditure of public health facilities in the state, ranging from primary, secondary and tertiary facilities which benefited from such funds.
He reiterated that the intervention is to sanitise the health sector and entrench prudence in public financial management.
The terms of reference of the taskforce include, “determination of the total capitation and/or fee for services received so far from the federal and state health insurance gateways; determine the level of utilisation by beneficiaries in the various facilities; determine factors responsible for any underperformance where necessary”, amongst others.