New Finance Act to boost Free Healthcare

By Kemo Cham

Lactating mothers line up at a Sierra Leonean hospital

[First published on www.politicosl.com] A new Finance Act aimed at boosting the donor funded partial Free Health Care (FHC) initiative has been submitted to parliament, the National Revenue Authority has confirmed.

The Act, which also aims at encouraging women’s empowerment, provides for the allocation of 0.5 percent of all GSTs charged to the Free Health Care programme introduced some five years ago to boost access to health care for some of the most vulnerable people in society.

The Finance Act 2016 is an amendment of the current Finance Act, Mohamed Bangura, Corporate Affairs Manager of NRA, told Politico on Monday. He said it seeks to widen the revenue base of the government.

In 2010 the government, through donor support, launched the FHC initiative which provides for a partial free health care for pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under five years old. The move was in response to a high rate of maternal and infant mortality, a legacy of the eleven years civil war.

The UN children’s agency Unicef, the United Kingdom agency for international development,

DFID, are the major sponsors of the scheme. But it has been mired in a lot of controversies, from corruption to the consequent shortage of drugs.

Lately the National Pharmaceutical Procurement Unit (NPPU), which procures drugs for the government, have been raising alarm over the potential danger for the scheme to collapse over lack of funding from the Finance Ministry. NPPU also complained about lack of storage facilities for the drugs.

Finance Ministry officials say the law generally seeks to maximize government’s revenue by, among others, imposing penalty for businesses which default in the collection of the GST tax. Some businesses are known to maintain two different receipt books, so that buyers are given the option to either pay higher for the GST receipt or less without a GST receipt.

Most people often prefer the non-GST receipt, which means loss for the government.

The piece of legislation, which is currently at committee level, according to parliamentary sources, notably seeks to raise funds for the government through a revised PAYE, entertainment and rent tax.

It also crucially provides for a tax break for companies and businesses which appoint women to managerial positions.

Civil society activists campaigning for affordable healthcare have praised the move and hoped funds raised would be deployed into life saving sectors.

(C) Politico 23/02/16