Cape Coast Oct 11, GNA- The management of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has engaged ABM LINKS GH LTD, a business processing outsourcing company, based in Cape Coast to process and print the identity cards for beneficiaries of the NHIS nation wide. Mr. Ras Boateng, Chief Executive Officer of the scheme, made this known at Cape Coast on Wednesday, when he visited the company to ascertain progress of work.

He explained that the company was engaged a month ago to help clear the backlog of more than 33,000 ID cards yet to be issued to beneficiaries in the 130 districts currently operating the scheme. According to him, this had become imperative, as the processing and printing of the cards at the various districts was "very slow", and many people who had registered for the past six to 12 months, had still not been issued their ID cards.

He said the situation was unacceptable and could make the public lose confidence in the scheme, and urged those who have not registered with the scheme due to the delay in the issuance of the ID cards, to do so, since that problem would soon be solved.

He said with the engagement of the company, the provision of ID cards to clients in the Ga and Ayawaso districts have been completed, while those for clients in Cape Coast were also being processed. He was optimistic that the rate at which the company was performing, the back log of cards would be cleared by the end of next month, adding that the scheme would eventually be extended to about 146 districts and sub districts nation wide.

Mr Bossman Dowuona-Hammond, Managing Director of ABM LINKS said the company with its 160 computers has the capacity to process more than 50,000 cards within three days.