By Haruna Usman, Birnin Kebbi
Recently the Kebbi state had launched a health Contributory scheme called kebbi state health Contributory management agency”KECHEMA” the scheme designed by the state government to capture civil servants in the scheme who will contribute a certain percentage from their monthly salaries to enable them access healthcare with ease just like the federal government “NHIS” in the approved hospitals in Kebbi.
Explaining before various unions in the state who were invited by the Nigeria labour congress (NLC) Dr Ja, afar Kangiwa who is the head of scheme said the benefits of the health contributions to the civil servants are numerous but added that its workability is certain as measures were already taken to ensure its sustainability, he stated that options are on the table for workers to join the scheme who stands to immensely benefit from it finally take off.
Shortly after his brief lecture on the scheme, the kebbi State chairman of Nigeria union of teachers (NUT) Alhaji Isah Arzika said teachers in the state will not join the scheme, according to him even the present state pension contributions that is being directly deducted from their salaries goes to the state coffers because they are yet to be allocated pension managers and the state government is yet to provide its own funding which is the case wherever there are pension deductions so until teachers are allocated pension managers and the counter funds from the state government his union will not join.
He maitained that, since the head of the scheme is in government payroll he cannot dictate to the government on what to do with the monies, he lamented that, already workers salaries are saturated with lots of problems caused by the increase in the price of petrol and hike in the electricity tariffs and many other basics needs of workers that their take home pay cannot accommodate.
He urged the government to ensure pension managers are allocated to teachers or face suspension of deductions for teachers in the state.
