Ejisu (Ash), Oct. 30, GNA - The Ejisu-Juaben District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme has within the seven months of its operation paid a total of 87 million cedis in medical claims to contributors.

Mr Yaw Ahenkora Afrifa, the District Chief Executive, who announced this at a workers' durbar for the staff of the assembly at Ejisu on Wednesday, said the highest claim paid to an individual was 4.5 million cedis, covering bills regarding surgical operation of the claimant. The gartering provided an opportunity for them to interact with Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, Deputy Minister of Information, who was on a weeklong official tour of the Ashanti region.

Mr Afrifa said the scheme, which has now become a model for other communities in the country, had a reserve fund of 400 million cedis with an operational fund of 89 million cedis.

According to him, the fund has registered about 20,000 contributors and was paying the medical expenses of about 60,000 people out of the district's total population of 124,000.

Mr Afrifa told the Deputy Minister that the assembly was taking measures to ensure a planned and orderly physical development within the Boankra Inland Port area.

The District Chief Executive said the assembly had commissioned the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) to draw a composite development plan for the area within four miles radius of the Port. He said not until the plan was ready, the assembly would not grant permission to anybody to undertake any physical development there. Mr Afrifa said the assembly would require about two billion cedis for the work and hinted that so far 100 million cedis had been made available.

He said the level of development at the district within the last two-and-a-half years was tremendous and that there was virtually no community in the area that had not benefited from the assembly's projects.

Mr Afrifa announced that under the District Town IV Projects being funded under the German/Ghana Government co-operation, eight projects were to be undertaken in the district at a cost of 32 billion cedis. Mr Asamoah-Boateng praised the assembly for its pace-setting achievement in the operation of the health insurance scheme, noting that, making health delivery accessible and affordable was the surest way to raise life expectancy of the people.

He said the economy was in far better shape than what the government inherited adding that after achieving stability, the focus of the authorities was how to ensure the growth of the sector.