Health

N30 billion scandal: NHIS Governing Council, Exec Sec fight dirty

Published

6 years ago

June 16, 2018

grassroots

The Governing Council of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is at the moment locked in a battle with the Agency’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Usman Yusuf, over a N30 billion residual fund and another N17 million allegedly blown on an unapproved foreign trip by the latter.

As a result, the Council has issued the NHIS boss a query dated May 25, 2018 demanding explanations on the N30 billion and another dated June 4, 2018 asking Prof. Usman to explain why he blew N17 million on a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, without approval.

The latest controversy is coming barely five months after the NHIS boss was recalled by the presidency from an indefinite suspension slammed on him by his supervising ministry.

According to the first query signed by the Chairman of Council, Dr Enyantu Ifenne and seen by Saturday Sun, the NHIS boss was accused of procedural gaps, deceit and violation of Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy in engaging Cowry Asset Management Ltd as asset manager/financial adviser to invest the controversial N30billion. This is in addition to approving the payment of N2.4million engagement fee and N500,000 quarterly retainership fee for Cowry Asset Management Ltd on May 8. The Council argued that this was in clear violation of a specific directive from the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and the Health Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole stopping NHIS from tampering with the N30billion residual fund.

The TSA policy requires all federal ministries, departments and agencies to domicile their funds in the TSA with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), except where the agency is granted exemption by the Federal Government. But Yusuf, who was suspended by Adewole last year over corruption allegations and nepotism, has defended himself saying the Health Minister gave his approval for the investment of the N30billion.

Part of the Council’s query dated May 25 to the NHIS boss reads, “You may recall that based on the detailed situation and financial analysis, council approved the investment of N30, 000,000,000.00 (Thirty Billion Naira) in federal securities on the condition that no commission should be paid to third parties. The provisional approval, so granted, directed management to initiate due process and submit a proposal to enable Council seek authorization by the Honourable Minister of Health.

“As it stands, Council’s attention has been drawn to new information which you failed to disclose in your earlier presentation. This includes:

That while the ministerial approval dated 18th August 2017, was referenced in the two memos presented, you failed to disclose that ministerial memo dated 29th August, 2018 withdrew same approval.

That you failed to disclose to the Council that the withdrawal letter explicitly stated the Honourable Minister of Finance’s advice against the investment of residual funds in securities because “such investment will be an indirect violation of the Federal Government’s treasury single account (TSA) policy”. Significantly, this advice was not disclosed to Council on either occasion.

“That on 28th February, 2018, you formally engaged Cowry Asset Limited as NHIS asset manager/financial Adviser without stating the terms and conditions of engagement. Again, this material fact, was not disclosed to Council.

That on 5th March 2018, on the eve of the Council’s inauguration, you approved, wholesale, a proposal titled “Indicative Offer To Sell Fgn Bonds” and directed General Manager Contribution Management to expedite disbursement of N25,000,000,000.00 (Twenty Five Billion Naira) for long term investment in FGN BONDS without obtaining prior approval of the Honourable Minister of Health as required under the Act.

“That on 3rd May 2018, while referencing Council approval of 24th April 2018, you again, formally engaged Cowry Asset Management Ltd, without an INDICATIVE investment proposal, as Financial Adviser/Portfolio Manager. Indeed, the vague and elastic terms of engagement states, “as in a similar way it did its Forensic Auditors and retained Lawyer——“. Presumably the INDICATIVE OFFER TO SELL FGN BONDS of March 5th 2018 subsists in the new engagement OFFER. That in furtherance of the above, you instructed General Manager, Procurement to process Cowry’s engagement on 8th May, 2018, without further reference to Council for approval.

“In summary, it is evident that there are procedural gaps. Also, Council was not presented with all available information to enable informed decision making on the matter. Indeed we believe that non-disclosure of significant information misled Council into error in decision, which may compromise her standing. Furthermore, we note, in particular, that the non-disclosure of the advice and directive of Honourable Minister of Health, may have led Council to provisionally approve the investment of funds, which if implemented, would contravene TSA policy.

“Therefore, you are required to explain, in writing the observed procedural lapses and failure to disclose critical information to Council on the matter. It will be appreciated if such explanation is presented to Council at its meeting scheduled for 12th June, 2018.” It is however not certain if Prof Yusuf has defended himself against these allegations raised by the Governing Council. On the heels of this is another allegation that Prof Yusuf blew N17million on a single foreign trip, for which he did not get the required approval.

The second query dated June 4, 2018 also seen by Saturday Sun reads in part:

“Please recall your request for permission to attend the 71st World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland vide NHIS/ES/064/XIV/134 of May 16, 2018.

“In the letter, you claimed that you were nominated to the Nigerian delegation by the Honourable Minister of Health. To facilitate approval, I requested that you attach the nomination letter to the application. The letter was not presented. Instead, you postulated that the request for note verbal signed by Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, is equivalent to ministerial approval.

“Notwithstanding the absence of supporting evidence of nomination and due to intervention by some Council members, approval was granted on condition that the 4 other names on the note verbal were not approved to travel. Approval for the listed staff was denied for three reasons.

“First, we observed that heads of the key program departments, formal and non-formal, which drive NHIS thrust towards universal coverage were not included. Secondly, the inclusion of Mr. Mu’azu Aliyu, a lawyer and your personal assistant, cannot be justified.

“Thirdly, Council expects NHIS to derive maximum value (from) an activity that costs a whooping seventeen million (17m)naira. However, in clear defiance of directive, you travelled with the four officers. It has been reliably confirmed that; Honourable Minister did not nominate you to attend the conference and 4 officers who travelled in defiance arrived one day before conference closed.

“Please clarify the motive for, misrepresenting the Minister in your request and misleading Council to grant approval, enabling staff to travel in defiance of Council directive. We request that you respond, in writing within 48hours. Furthermore, please copy all council members accordingly.”

All attempts to speak with both the Chairman of Council, Dr. Enyantu Ifenne and the NHIS boss, Prof. Yusuf failed as they neither picked several calls to their phone numbers nor replied text messages sent to them seeking their reactions.

However, an emailed reply to the Council on May 19, 2018, on why he traveled to Geneva without the required approval, Prof Yusuf said he got his approval to travel via a letter signed by “the Permanent Secretary FMoH on the authority of the Honourable Minister.”

According to him “The World Health Assembly is an annual event attended by Ministers of Health from over 94 member nations. Nigeria’s delegations include the Hon. Minister of Health as the leader of the delegation and the Heads of Agencies under the Ministry. “As a signatory to the Commitment to Universal Healthcare Coverage, (UHC), Nigeria’s delegation will be ably represented by the NHIS which is the lead Agency in that quest. With the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to fund the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) for the first time since the passing of the National Health Act in 2014, the NHIS is expected to receive N28.5b to cover vulnerable Nigerians across all six geopolitical zones.

“All our development partners and donor Agencies are very encouraged by this development, which will be a dawn of new beginning in Healthcare in Nigeria. There will be several fora where this will be discussed and NHIS Nigeria needs to be on the table.”

Responding to a similar allegation recently, Prof Yusuf had said that his mandate in the NHIS remains to sanitise the system and grow the scheme, while accusing those reporting him to the media as corrupt Nigerians who wanted the status quo to remain. “They won’t have the time to do all the nonsense they did in the past. Every penny will be taken back into the scheme. I am in NHIS to do the right thing. And I will do it transparently. I will follow what the NHIS Act says. Corruption will no longer be condoned in this scheme,” he said.

On concerns that the yield on the investment was meant to stockpile funds for Buhari’s re-election bid, as speculated, the NHIS boss said: “This is not the Jonathan era. They think Buhari will do that nonsense? Where we come from, we are brought up well.

“NHIS money is blood money, and it is meant to serve our people. Billions have been stolen. Now I am here as the chief executive officer, I will grow the scheme for our people. Every penny that comes in as an investment will be shown to the world, not all the nonsense they did in the past.”

(Saturday Sun)

Health

Cybercriminals Successfully Encrypted Data in Ransomware Attacks on Nearly 75% of Healthcare Organizations, Sophos Survey

Only 24% of Healthcare Organizations Were Able to Disrupt a Ransomware Attack Before Attackers Encrypted Their Data. This is the Lowest Rate of Disruption in 3 Years, reports SANDRA ANI

Published

6 months ago

November 2, 2023

grassroots

Chester Wisniewski, director, field CTO, Sophos

Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, today shared its sector survey report, “The State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2023,” which revealed that, among those organizations surveyed, cybercriminals successfully encrypted data in nearly 75% of ransomware attacks.

This is the highest rate of encryption in the past three years and a significant increase from the 61% of healthcare organizations that reported having their data encrypted last year.

In addition, only 24% of healthcare organizations were able to disrupt a ransomware attack before the attackers encrypted their data—down from 34% in 2022; this is the lowest rate of disruption reported by the sector over the past three years.

“To me, the percentage of organizations that successfully stop an attack before encryption is a strong indicator of security maturity. For the healthcare sector, however, this number is quite low—only 24%. What’s more, this number is declining, which suggests the sector is actively losing ground against cyberattackers and is increasingly unable to detect and stop an attack in progress.

“Part of the problem is that ransomware attacks continue to grow in sophistication, and the attackers are speeding up their attack timelines. In the latest Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders, we found that the median time from the start of a ransomware attack to detection was only five days. We also found that 90% of ransomware attacks took place after regular business hours. The ransomware threat has simply become too complex for most companies to go at it alone. All organizations, especially those in healthcare, need to modernize their defensive approach to cybercrime, moving from being solely preventative to actively monitoring and investigating alerts 24/7 and securing outside help in the form of services like managed detection and response (MDR),” said Chester Wisniewski, director, field CTO, Sophos.

Healthcare Organizations Were Able to Disrupt a Ransomware Attack — Sophos report

Additional key findings from the report include:

In 37% of ransomware attacks where data was successfully encrypted, data was also stolen, suggesting a rise in the “double dip” method
Healthcare organizations are now taking longer to recover, with 47% recovering in a week, compared to 54% last year
The overall number of ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations surveyed declined from 66% in 2022 to 60% this year
Compromised credentials were the number one root cause of ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations, followed by exploits
The number of healthcare organizations surveyed that paid ransom payments declined from 61% last year to 42% this year. This is lower than the cross-sector average of 46%

“In 2016, the Red Cross Hospital of Córdoba in Spain suffered a ransomware attack that reached servers and encrypted hundreds of files, medical records and other important patient information. It was a major disruption to our operations and interfered with our ability to care for our patients. The stakes are high in ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations—and attackers know that—meaning we’ll always be a target. After this ransomware attack, we worked hard with Tekpyme to bolster our defenses, and now we have reduced our incident response time by 80%. I think the industry as a whole is making improvements, but there is still work to do, because of the constantly changing nature of cybercrime. Hopefully healthcare organizations can leverage the help that is available from security vendors such as Sophos to prevent a very real ‘threat to life’ if systems go offline due to a ransomware attack,” said José Antonio Alcaraz Pérez, head of information systems and communications at Cruz Red Andalusia in Spain.

“Cyberspace today is ripe with technically sophisticated actors looking for vulnerabilities to exploit. What all this translates to is a multidimensional cyberthreat of actors who have the tools to paralyze entire hospitals. Partnering with the private sector is critical to our mission. The information [they] share has real-world impacts and can save real businesses and real lives,” said Christopher Wray, FBI Director.

Sophos recommends the following best practices to help defend against ransomware and other cyberattacks:

Strengthen defensive shields with:
- Security tools that defend against the most common attack vectors, including endpoint protection with strong anti-ransomware and anti-exploit capabilities
- Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to thwart the abuse of compromised credentials
- Adaptive technologies that respond automatically to attacks, disrupting adversaries and buying defenders time to respond
- 24/7 threat detection, investigation and response, whether delivered in-house or by a specialized Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider
Optimize attack preparation, including regularly backing up, practicing recovering data from backups and maintaining an up-to-date incident response plan
Maintain security hygiene, including timely patching and regularly reviewing security tool configurations

To learn more about the State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2023, download the full report from Sophos.com.

*The State of Ransomware 2023 survey polled 3,000 IT/cybersecurity leaders in organizations with between 100 and 5,000 employees, including 233 from the healthcare sector, across 14 countries in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

Health

LUTH Doctor Slumps And Dies After 72hrs Call In The Neurosurgery Unit

Published

8 months ago

September 20, 2023

Alice Ginika Simon

Outrage As LUTH Doctor Dies After 72-hour Non-stop Shift

Tweeps have taken to X to share their thoughts on the death of a young doctor, identified as Dr. Umoh Michael, who died on Sunday after allegedly working 72 hours straight.

According to reports, Michael died during a church service at the United Evangelical Church on September 17. He was said to have worked a 72-hour non-stop shift at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, where he was a resident doctor.

Doctors under the aegis of the Association of Resident Doctors, LUTH chapter, in a letter addressed to the Chief Medical Director, LUTH, Prof. Wasiu Lanre Adeyemo, attested to the fact that the young doctor was overworked.

They claimed Michael returned home at about 3:00 a.m. Sunday after a 72-hour shift in the hospital, adding that he had barely slept in their apartment before that day.

The statement partly read, “We the house officers are in deep grief over the loss of our colleague, a co-house officer (Dr Umoh Michael) who died on 17th September, 2023, after having a 72hrs call in the Neurosurgery Unit.

“He is said to have been on call 72hrs before arriving home on Sunday morning to get set for church service, reaching his worship center (United Evangelical Church) where he slumped in the church at about 11 am.”

“His roommate attested to the fact that Umoh Michael had barely slept in their apartment over the past one week as he was always on call or the day he returned home was around 3 a.m. after surgeries and other activities in the Neurosurgery Unit.”

Reacting to the sad incident, LUTH’s Public Relations Officer, Omolola Fakeye, who spoke on an online platform (not PUNCH) Online said, “It is not true that anybody worked for 72 hours. I have not been briefed about his death.

“We were at a programme yesterday (Monday), but I will find out; I can’t say anything now. I will check the medical report of what could have happened because anybody can say anything, but the medical report will show us what happened.”

May his soul rest in peace.

Health

Why You Need To Drink More Water Than You Use To

Published

10 months ago

July 15, 2023

Alice Ginika Simon

Hello! It’s the weekend, And as usual, We want to share some quick important healthy living tips with you.

Today, We will be sharing on the IMPORTANCE OF DRINKING ENOUGH WATER.

Do you know that Adult humans are 60 percent water, and our blood is 90 percent water? Now, There isn’t an agreed quantity of water that must be consumed daily. You only need to drink as plenty as you should.

Water can be said to be one of the highest natural medicines to man, As it helps avoid a lot of sicknesses like kidney stones, And it also helps in their healing process.

Here are a few importance of drinking enough water;

1. It boosts skin health and beauty: With dehydration, the skin can become more vulnerable to skin disorders and premature wrinkling.

2. It cushions the brain, spinal cord, and other sensitive tissues: Dehydration can affect brain structure and function. It is also involved in the production of hormones and neurotransmitters. Prolonged dehydration can lead to problems with thinking and reasoning.

3. It regulates body temperature: Water that is stored in the middle layers of the skin comes to the skin’s surface as sweat when the body heats up. As it evaporates, it cools the body. In sport.

4. The digestive system depends on it: The bowel needs water to work properly. Dehydration can lead to digestive problems, constipation, and an overly acidic stomach. This increases the risk of heartburn and stomach ulcers.

5. Adequate water flushes body waste easily: For sweating and removal of urine and feces.

6. The airways need it: When dehydrated, Airways are restricted by the body in an effort to minimize water loss. This can make asthma and allergies worse.

7. It helps maintain body blood pressure.

8. It prevents kidney damage: The kidneys regulate fluid in the body. Insufficient water can lead to kidney stones and other problems.

9. Consuming enough water instead of sweetened drinks helps with weight loss.

10. Joint Lubrication: Cartilage, found in joints and the disks of the spine, contains around 80% water. Dehydration can reduce the joints’ shock-absorbing ability, leading to joint pain.

Please drink enough water!