MP Christophe Emmanuel.
PHILIPSBURG--Independent Member of Parliament (MP) Christophe Emmanuel on Thursday called on government to release relevant information, including figures, for the Electronic Health Authorization System (EHAS).
Emmanuel said the mandatory EHAS for every visitor was established due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but no information about the system and/or its effectiveness has ever been released by government.
The travel insurance has triggered some questions in the community from various groups and has even come under criticism from EHAS employees who have claimed abuse of their short-term status. As such, Emmanuel said that the government should “for once in its tenure” practice transparency and respond to the many public inquiries and concerns about the programme.
The MP said he would like to know how much money was collected from the EHAS programme and where this money went. “It is a travel insurance scheme so one would assume the end point for funds would be an insurance company; the question is which company is the government working with? And how much money was collected? Did all funds generated from EHAS go to the insurance company or some to government coffers? Also, how many people actually made use of the insurance,” Emmanuel asked.
Additionally, the government stated that EHAS was also important for the collection of data. “Perhaps the country can be provided with a snapshot of this data. Too often we have programmes running and get no information about the results and effectiveness of the programme. Now you have employees claiming abuse and not a single person from government responds publicly. Not that I’m surprised, but government would do well to be open and transparent before conclusions and assumptions are drawn,” Emmanuel said.
