How Rostam Aziz’s Igunga model helped the formation of NHIF
Dar es Salaam. President Benjamin Mkapa says the formation of the National Health Insurance was something that he learnt from former Igunga Member of Parliament Rostam Aziz.
In his recently published memoir on page 164, under the chapter, ‘Struggling with dependency syndrome’, the retired President says that he believed that poor people needed proper health services.
“Another way to help the poor was to start up the national Health Insurance Fund which would offer health insurance to families,” writes the former head of state in My Life My Purpose.
He adds: I learnt about this scheme from Rostam Aziz, Member of Parliament for Igunga and a successful business man. In 1996, he started a health insurance scheme for the residents of Igunga constituency, for a small sum of money, around Sh10,000, a family with four children could be insured for a whole year.
In a country which was struggling with provision of health services, he was encouraged that this would solve many health issues in the country and in 2001 the National Health Insurance was born.
The scheme, however, was faced with all sorts of challenges; the biggest of all was the mindset.
“We introduced this countrywide. The scheme wasn’t understood well to start with because people said, “I will never get sick. Why should I give money to this fund”, eventually the scheme caught on,” he writes.
Business man Rostam Aziz was Igunga MP between 1994 and 2011 when he opted out of elective politics to pursue his business ventures both locally and beyond.
