NHIF Director General Emmanuel Humba

The National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) has announced a countrywide crackdown aimed to save millions of shillings lost in paying for service that were never given.

Speaking in Dar es Salaam recently the Fund’s Director General Emmanuel Humba said the crackdown would involve all hospitals and health centres in the country after it has been discovered that some people have been cheating to get service.

He would not divulge the actual loss incurred the fund but said that the exercise would identify genuine members entitled to health services in order to protect the fund from being misused by unregistered patients.

“NHIF will conduct thorough verification by checking the list of members to establish the ghost ones including retirees who continue to use their identity cards while they are no longer in service,” he said.

He added: “The retirees should surrender the old identity cards and get new ones those that befit them.”

Although the law directs employers to collect identity cards from their employees as soon as they retire, he said, at the moment the practice appear not to be given full force.

In the circumstances, he said, the retirees and their dependants continue to use the identities.

The fund has already written all the employers to remind and ask them the need to collect the identity cards once their employees retiree.

He said that his office has discovered that there were people who use lost membership cards instead of returning them to their owners, adding that that was wrong.

He asked members who have lost their cards to report and starting procedures to get new ones.

Humba revealed that they have had some cases of discovered dishonest customers which they reported to security organs.

He insisted that NHIF would not hesitate to report to any one discovered to engage in the malpractices.