The embattled executive secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Usman Yusuf, has once again been linked to a fresh fund controversy after he allegedly invested N25billion 'idle funds of the NHIS against the minister of health's advice.
Yusuf, who was suspended by the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, in July 2017, following allegations of gross misconduct and reinstated by President Muhammadu Buhari in February 2018, is neck deep in fresh trouble, Premium Times reports.

In August, 2017, the minister had gave approval to the acting executive secretary of the NHIS, Attahiru Ibrahim, to invest “idle funds” of the agency in federal government securities.

However, 11 days later, the minister wrote again to the acting executive secretary to reverse his approval, stating that the minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun, has advised against such investment.

The later letter appeared to have put closure on the idea to invest the NHIS “idle funds”, until Yusuf regained his office in February.

Documents revealed that shortly after his reinstatement, he engaged one of the certified investment firms, Cowry Asset Management Limited, as financial adviser and directed it to proceed with the investment, relying on the original letter of the minister conveying approval but ignoring the other letter withdrawing the approval.

He directed that N25billion be invested in five tranches of five billion Naira each and to mature in 2034.

This, according to sources in the NHIS, was also in defiance of advice of officers at the agency, some of whom later decided to frustrate the process pending the inauguration of the governing board.

Following the council’s resolution, Mr Yusuf on May 3 wrote Cowry Asset Management Limited to inform it that the council stated clearly that “there should be no payment of any commission to a third party” for the investment.

He, however, stated: “The Scheme will therefore engage Cowry Asset Management Ltd in a similar way it did its Forensic Auditors and retained Lawyer with initial engagement fee and any subsequent payments of fees presented for work done by your Company will be subject to the approval of the Tenders Board.”

After the approval, aghast insiders at NHIS made the council aware of the advice of the minister against the investment when the idea was initially muted in 2017.

Irked that the executive secretary had only presented to it the initial letter of the minister conveying his approval, it directed that no further action be taken on the investment.

The council also issued Yusuf a query for misleading it to give approval for a course of action that is against the policy directive of government.

According to the query issued by the Chairman of the Governing Council, Mrs Ifenne, the council noted that its provisional approval was for “Management to initiate due process and submit a proposal to enable Council seek authorisation by the Honourable Minister of Health.”

Ifenne’s letter continued: “As it stands, Council attention has been drawn to new information which you failed to disclose in your earlier presentation.”

The council said Yusuf withheld from it a letter from the minister which expressly stated that the Minister of Finance advised against investing NHIS funds in securities.

It also accused the executive secretary of engaging the financial adviser without stating the terms and conditions of engagement.

Other charges are that Yusuf approved “wholesale” the proposal of the firm he engaged as financial adviser on the eve of the inauguration of the council, and directed a general manager of the scheme to expedite disbursement of N25 billion for long-term investment without obtaining prior approval of the minister of health as required under the NHIS Act.

He was also accused of engaging the investment advise on “vague and elastic terms”, and instructing an official to process the firm’s engagement without further reference to council for approval.

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