The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) has launched the National Insurance Scheme Registration of beneficiaries of the Ghana Luxemborug Social Trust Project.

The project, which is in its third phase in the Dangme West, Shai Osudoku and Ningo Prampram Districts, targets mostly children, the poor, pregnant women, thereby contributing to the extension of Social Protection in Ghana.

The launch took place on Wednesday at Ningo during which hundreds of indigenous people from the Ningo Prampram district were registered freely for the NHIA cards and birth certificates.

In an address before the registration exercise, the Director in Charge of Project Coordination, MoGCSP, Mr. Felix Logan, said his ministry had a mandate to see to it that the poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable had access to all the social services in the country, most especially utilities and health.

"This the ministry was doing through Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty(LEAP) , the School Feeding Programme, building up the National Household Registry, etc.," he added.

Mr. Logan informed that the Gender Ministry together with their development partners had initiated integrated social services development programmes such as working with the Ghana Health Service to improve the services of the CHIPS compound, ensuring that the NHIA had the names of all those identified as indigenes and who also deserved the exemption category support, etc.

He informed that, currently, his outfit was working in not less than 68 communities in the Dangbe West District and 37 communities in the Ningo Prampram District with the aim of improving their living conditions.

The Director for Membership and Regional Operations at the NHIA, Mr. Ben Kusi, said, as part of their collaboration with the Ministry, when the MoGCSP identified the vulnerable in the communities, his outfit ensured that they were registered.

Mr. Kusi however informed of the challenge of getting such persons together at the same location, and for the fact that poor network connectivity made it difficult for them to be registered where they lived and therefore had to be conveyed to the district capitals for registration.

He informed of the success of the National health scheme which had been able to increase awareness of the insurance for the past three years; "growth has been high with almost 13 million people on the NHIS, all due to the fact that we are able to get funds to pay for the facilities, and as we continue to pay they would give the care."

He told of the possibility of linking the Ghana National Household register with the National Health Insurance and the National Identification Authority data bases for easy accessibility of health and other social services.

In attempting to link these cards, Mr. Kusi asked them to deal only with authorized persons of the NHIA since some persons had taken advantage of the ignorance of many regarding online registration procedures, etc., to rob them of their cards.

The District Chief Executive (DCE) of the Ningo Prampram District, Mr. Jonathan Teye Doku, in appreciating the efforts of the partners in registering his community members, also requested that NHIA to set up an office in the Ningo Prampram District since to cater for the area's huge population, saying they had to commute to Dodowa and other districts to renew their cards.

Mr. Doku also pleaded with the Gender Ministry to ensure that schools in Ningo were enrolled onto the School Feeding Programme to allow the poor in their communities get some decent meals whilst they went to school.

The MoGCSP in collaboration with the NHIA with support from Ghana-Luxembourg Social Trust (GLST) has successfully piloted Phase 1&2 of NHIS registration in the Dangbe West, Shai Osu-Doku and Ningo Prampram Districts.

The project aims at improving maternal and child health status of the poor and low-income groups using the conditional cash transfer system.

Phase three of the project looks forward to registering 5,000 poor individuals onto the National Health Insurance Scheme and 3,000 poor individuals for Birth Certificates in the Shai Osu-Doku and Ningo Prampram Districts by the end of March, 2021.