The Cabinet has approved the Ghana Medical Trust (Mahama Cares) Fund Bill for onward transmission to Parliament, President John Dramani Mahama has disclosed.
The Fund, which is in fulfillment of the President’s campaign promise, is aimed at relieving the financial burden of sufferers of chronic diseases.
President Mahama made the disclosure on Friday, when he received a cheque of one million and two thousand Ghana cedis from all the 11 agencies under the Ministry for the Interior in support of the Mahama Cares Fund.
Mr Christian Tetteh Yohuno, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), on behalf of the 11 agencies, presented the check to President Mahama at the Presidency in Accra.
The breakdown of the contributions towards the donation are: Ghana Police Service GH¢580,000, Ghana Immigration Service GH¢100,000, Ghana National Fire Service GH¢50,000, National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) GH¢50,000, and the Ghana Prisons Service GH¢50,000.
Others are Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) GH¢10,000, National Identification Authority (NIA) GH¢50,000, Gaming Commission GH¢50,000, the Ghana Refugees Board GH¢5,000, National Peace Council GH¢5,000 and the Small Arms and Light Weapons Commission GH¢10,000.
Individual contributions were from Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, the Minister for the Interior/National Security GH¢50,000 and Mr Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi, Deputy Minister for the Interior, GH¢30,000.
President Mahama expressed gratitude to the security agencies and all other agencies under the Ministry for the Interior for their kind gesture, stating that he believed that it would go a long way to help the Government to be able to operationalize the Fund.
He noted that once Parliament passed the Mahama Cares Fund Bill into law, then it would open the way for the Government to appoint the Trustees for the Fund.
He reiterated that independent trustees, people who were distinguished and well-recognized in the country, would be appointed to administer the fund.
“We’ve made arrangements for funding and as we said the funding will come from the uncapped portion of the National Health Insurance Levy,” he said.
“It used to be capped and so a certain amount of it used to end up in the consolidated fund.”
He said the capping of the National Health Insurance Levy had been removed and the full financing was going to the National Health Insurance Authority of which a portion would be reserved to fund Mahama Cares.
The President said funding for the Mahama Cares would not only be from the National Health Insurance Levy, and that it would also be from allocations made by the budget to fund the programme and also from private corporate donations and grants from development partners and others interested in access to quality health care.
The President said on the day the Mahama Cares Fund was launched, the Government raised quite substantial amounts from the different groups at the event.
“I also pledged six months of my salary,” President Mahama said.
He said he would soon present his own cheque to cover the pledge that he made.
The President said he had asked the Chief of Staff’s Office and the Special Advisor on Governmental Affairs to start the collection of the one month salary pledge from all political appointees, ministers and appointees at the Presidency.
“And so we will contribute our quota. We will also have a nice ceremony like this and we will give our donation to the Minister of Health to put it in the Fund, while the Bill goes through Parliament and becomes operational.”
He said everybody could be a beneficiary of the Fund as anyone could be affected by non-communicable diseases.
President said unfortunately with changing lifestyles Ghanaians had a high incidence of these non-communicable diseases.
He said the Mahama Cares Fund would also be used to create awareness among Ghanaians to understand the disposing factors of non-communicable diseases.
“It is always said that prevention is better than cure and so if our people know the disposing factors for acquiring non-communicable diseases then they will take action against it,” the President said.
Mr Christian Tetteh Yohuno, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), in presenting the cheque, said the donations was a freewill contributions from senior officers from the all agencies under the Ministry for the Interior in support of the Mahama Cares Fund.
This, he said, was because a large number of Ghanaians really needed health cares services, stating that personnel in the security services had the government to take care of them, but some others have nobody to take care of them.
“So President with this your good initiative we feel that it is better that we also support. And the support we are giving is just the beginning of many other supports to follow,” the IGP said.
In attendance at the function was Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, the Minister for the Interior/National Security Minister and Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the Health Minister.
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