The National Health Insurance Scheme says it has removed 23,000 ghost enrolees, who have been enjoying the benefits of the insurance scheme, from it.

The Executive Secretary, NHIS, Prof. Usman Yusuf, disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday at the award of ISO/IEC 20000 standard certification to Galaxy Backbone Plc.

Yusuf said he had worked in collaboration with three other government agencies, namely: Galaxy Backbone Plc, Nigeria Communications Satellite Limited and the National Identity Management Commission, to remove ghost enrolees who had been enjoying the benefits of the insurance scheme illegally.

According to him, this has brought a friction between the NHIS and Health Management Organisations in the country.

“I have a crack ICT team and the members have worked with Galaxy Backbone, the NIMC and NigComSat to remove the ghost enrolees. For this, the HMOs are fighting me, but we have to make sure that the right people get the money,” Yusuf added.

Speaking at the event, the Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Harriet Thompson, who presented the certificate to Galaxy Backbone, said Information Technology had a critical role to play in the delivery of government services to the citizens.

The Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Mr. Solomon Dalung, challenged the ICT industry to use technology to tackle poverty and youth unemployment, saying except this was done, a time bomb was waiting to explode.

He also challenged ICT professionals to come up with innovations that would take Nigeria out of recession.

The ISO 20000 is an international standard, which helps organisations to demonstrate excellence and best practices in IT service management. The standard ensures that companies can achieve evidence-based benchmarks to continuously improve their delivery of IT services.

In his welcome remarks, the Managing Director/CEO, Galaxy Backbone, Yusuf Kazaure, said, “I am pleased to announce to you today that we have been certified to ISO 20000 standard within the scope we set for the certification.

“It is particularly noteworthy that this is the first time we achieved a feat like this with minimum support from external consultants. I believe this approach has helped us to understand the management system better and will enhance our adoption process.”

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