Exposing corruption put our lives in danger—NHIS board member

A member of the Governing Board of the National Health Insurance Scheme(NHIS), Josiah Biobelemoye, has said whenever they exposed corruption, it fought back, and he faulted the recommendation of the presidential panel probing the crisis in the scheme.

He said the proposal by the panel that the entire governing council be dissolved was at odds with the anti-corruption stance of the Federal Government.

According to him, the recommendation is an attempt to punish the NHIS board members for exposing the corrupt activities ongoing at the health agency.

Speaking on AIT’s Kakaaki breakfast show monitored by Vanguard in Abuja yesterday, Biobelemoye said: “What the NHIS probe panel has done will not help the nation.

‘’I was told the report has been released, and that the Executive Secretary has been sent packing; and that the governing board has been dissolved as well. I have not seen the document myself. But now, something is wrong with that. It’s like when you blow a whistle, you are punished.”

Biobelemoye, who is also the President of Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, said further that a similar situation played out at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Owerri, where workers were denied four months salaries for blowing the whistle on corruption.