The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has promised to recover and return more funds to the National Health Insurance Scheme which had been trapped in several places.

The EFCC acting Chairman, Abba Mohammed Umar, stated this in Abuja when a delegation of the NHIS led by its Executive Secretary, Prof. Mohammed Sambo, visited the commission’s office to hand over a consignment of Personal Protection Equipment to sustain the fight against COVID-19.

A statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by the NHIS Head (Media and Public Relations Division), Ayo Osinlu, indicated that the EFCC boss recalled his (Umar) personal role in the recovery of the trapped funds of the NHIS and its return to the scheme.

“Umar expressed the agency’s appreciation to the PTF for midwifing the huge supply of PPE from NHIS, adding that it would go a long way in ensuring the protection of the agency’s staff in the line of duty,” NHIS statement read.

It added that the NHIS CEO reiterated the agency’s commitment to supporting the sustained efforts of the Federal Government to protect all Nigerians from the debilitating scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NHIS executive secretary, Sambo, however, expressed concern for institutions and personnel providing essential services, whose nature of work pre-disposed them to high risk of infection, stressing that no effort must be spared to ensure their protection in the line of duty.

The National Coordinator of the PTF, Dr. Sani Aliyu, expressed concern that the pandemic had inflicted untold hardship on social, economic and even security situations in the country, and therefore, called for the sustenance of the push against the virus.