The immediate-past Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah, is being held at the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for questioning.
Mr Mensah, who reported at the BNI office on Friday, was invited by the director of the BNI on Wednesday through a phone call, but was in the Volta Region for a visit.
A meeting was scheduled for Thursday, December 31, 2015 when the former NHIA boss was expected to have arrived in Accra, but in an interesting twist, seven heavily armed officials from the national investigative body invaded his residence on New Year’s Eve, ostensibly to arrest him.
The BNI began investigations into the issue of false claims by some 10 suspected medical facilities, which have already resulted in the arrest of some five officials at the NHIA headquarters, with three of them sent to court to be remanded while the other two have been granted bail.
The security investigative body, some weeks ago, also picked 17 directors and deputy directors of the authority in relation to the same matter.
The investigations began six months ago at the instance of President John Mahama, and according to the BNI, many of the medical facilities have been falsifying documents and submitting bloated claims to the NHIA, and in some cases colluded with officials of the NHIA to defraud the authority.
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