National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has been declared as the Most Innovative Public Sector at the 2019 Inspirational Public Sector Leadership Awards (IPSLA) which was organized by IMANI Ghana.

Assessing the various institutions based on their overall innovativeness, NHIA garnered 91.20% votes, emerging the winner for the contest with Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) coming in second with 90.45%.

National Service Secretariat (NSS) was third with 86.4%, Ministry of Energy came fourth with 86.2% and Ministry of Business Development obtaining 85.8% for the fifth position.

As part of NHIA’s effort to improve customer service, it introduced mobile renewal and non-biometric member authenticator. DVLA in November 2017 also introduced a smart vehicle registration card and drivers’ license.

The NSS, on the other hand, deployed online booking of appointments in October 2018 for registrants across the country to speed up the entire registration process.

The Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Business Development introduced oil and gas licensing round and presidential pitch, respectively.

According to the Director of Research and Finance of Imani Africa, Patrick Stephenson, this award seeks to praise institutions who are working effortlessly in the public sectors.

It also serves as a “wakeup call to public institutions to strive for the development of better and efficient systems for service delivery”.

Vice President of IMANI Ghana, Kofi Bentil noted that, the public sector is the engine of growth in the Ghanaian economy, adding that, the whole purpose of the public sector is to make service delivery accessible to ordinary Ghanaians.

During the Inspirational Public Sector Leadership Awards in Accra, he said, “Even though people like to say that the private sector is the engine of growth, the truth is that, the public sector is the engine of growth".

"The private sector is the body (the one that you see), if the public sector works well, you’ll see a movement, a positive movement in the private sector," he added.

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