…$72,000.00 For Rent Is Too Much!- He Says

The Deputy Director of Corporate and Strategic Direction at the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr. Ametor Quarmyne, has said that the $72, 000 used to rent an apartment for two years to be used by the CEO of the authority; Mr. Sylvester Mensah is very exorbitant!

Mr. Quarmyne, who was reacting to a publication in the Daily Searchlight which was captioned, ‘NHIS BOSS BLOWS 1.2 BILLION ON ANOTHER CAR...As Ametor Kwami says $ 52,000 car is cheap!’ said the amount used to rent the apartment was too expensive. “… $ 72,000 apartment is very expensive but it is for the interim,” he said.

He was speaking on a Techiman based radio station, Classic FM, concerning the amount used to purchase the car for the official use of the Chief Executive Officer.

This contradicts his earlier position on various radio stations in the capital where he asked the Managing Editor of this paper and other radio morning show hosts to seek the opinion of estate developers to ascertain whether $72,000 is on a high side or not.

Mr. Ametor however denied ever saying that the$ 52,000 car was cheap contrary to what he said on Radio Gold, an Accra based radio station to the effect that “ the Nissan Teana compared to Honda Civic is far less costly. The car in question is not the most expensive one on the market.”

But speaking on Classic FM, Ametor said, “Please I didn’t say it is cheap … $ 52,000 car is not cheap, it is expensive but it is a car the Authority bought for the use of our boss. When buying a car, you have to buy a durable one that can also last for a long time to serve the purpose for which it was bought. I can’t stand anywhere and say that a $ 52,000 car is cheap,” Mr. Ametor added.

When asked about the cars the former CEO, Mr. Ras Boateng used, he said “when I came to the Authority in 2009, I did not come to see any saloon car. They had two 4 x 4 cross country Land Cruisers, Mr. Ras Boateng took one away when he was leaving. The other one had an accident and is always being serviced in the garage.”

He also said that the purchasing of the cars were approved by the National Health Insurance Council in 2007.

On the issue of the two Land Cruisers, Ametor who got his current job in a public institution which was never advertised anywhere in media was told in the face by the host of Adom’s fm morning show, Ekouraba Gyasi, that he is not competent to occupy that job.

Ametor could not tell the listening public how come Mr. Ras Boateng allegedly got away with a Land Cruiser and rather told the host to call Ras Boateng himself.