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The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) was on Wednesday adjudged the best public sector institution for innovations at this year’s Inspirational Public Sector Leadership Awards (IPSLA), in Accra.

The annual award is an event that honours public sector institutions based on the successful and effective delivery of services to their stakeholders in the year under review.

The IMANI, Ghana and Swiss government supported initiative is also a research and advocacy tool to support on-going reforms in the public sector.

The NHIA was adjudged the most innovative institution within the review period of 2018/2019 due to the introduction of the NHIS mobile registration app, which has enhanced public service delivery.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority came second; the National Service Scheme placed third; the Ministry of Energy- forth; and the Ministry of Business Development was fifth.

Other public service institutions were presented with certificates of appreciation for participating in the survey.

Mr Marricke Kofi Gane, International Development Expert, said the formula for providing excellent services within the public sector is a simple one, but the difficulty arises when governments seek to apply the formula.

He said the public would always require public services to be of the highest quality and easily accessible; and there is the need to raise resources to deliver those public services.

He said the way many governments have tried to keep that equation balance was to cut down on the cost of delivering public services and increase the way finances are raised either domestically or internationally.

He said in our environment is characterised by high costs of delivering public services and the focus for trying to balance that equation shifts to efficiency and effectiveness.

He said getting more out of every cedi spent is the definition of efficiency that has to be adopted by the public sector.
Mr Gane said the way to become and remain efficient in the face of minimal resources and higher demands from the public is to innovate.

Mr Phillip Stalder, Ambassador of Switzerland to Ghana, said the awards are being held to celebrate pioneers using innovation to make public services more efficient.

“Trustworthy and visionary people in the public sector in combination with constant application of innovation would help provide citizens with the best solutions or services,” he said.