Nigeria welcomes HIS

From KABIRU YUSUF, Abuja

President Olusegun Obasanjo has welcomed the commencement of a Community Health Insurance Scheme in Nigeria, and described it as a solution to government’s previous difficulty in dealing with the nation’s informal sector.
The president was speaking at State House, Wednesday, during the presentation of the Scheme by Hygeia Nigeria Limited and the Dutch Government, represented by Ambassador Arie van der Wiel.
“This scheme is very interesting because one of the groups we have been unable to deal with is the informal sector, especially in the area of credit, insurance and taxation”, he said.
He thanked the government of the Netherlands for supporting the scheme, especially because the five-year grant of $33m would encourage and stabilise the scheme, before it can go on its own steam.
The federal government, he said would explore ways of collaborating with Hygeia and the Dutch Government to ensure the success of the scheme using the savings from the Debt Relief Fund, under the Millennium Development Goals programme.
Earlier, Professor Ade Elebute, chairman of Hygeia, a health services provider, said the scheme aims at providing health services to the poor and disadvantaged in society at subsidized, affordable rates, starting from $2.00 premium per year for the peasant farmers in the pilot scheme.
The Dutch ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Arie van der Wiel, said his government had approved donor funds amounting to $105m over the next five years for the scheme in four nations in sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria taking $33m.
Mr. Arie said an initial 100,000 Lagos market women and peasant farmers in Shonga, Kwara state will benefit from the pilot scheme.