The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has welcomed the initiative to restore the ecosystem through the ‘Green Ghana’ campaign, as it joined the nationwide tree-planting exercise and also advised staff to commit to tree-planting.
The Ashanti Regional Director of NHIA, Mr. Kwadwo Tweneboa-Kodua, while partaking in the exercise observed that restoring the ecosystem is a major step toward promoting health.
Given that the Authority’s work is to provide healthcare accessibility for Ghanaians, he noted that ensuring a healthy society by tree-planting indirectly eases that work.
“We also want to ensure that our environment is green. This is because once our environment is green there will be a favourable environment to promote health, which will benefit the NHIA,” he said.
Government’s ‘Green Ghana Project’ led by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources seeks to plant 5 million commercial and other trees in all 16 regions.
It also seeks to mobilise Ghanaians to plant trees and nurture them to maturity, as contributing to the preservation of our environment is laudable.
This is in response to the global call for action to address the deteriorating ecosystem through widespread environmental degradation/destruction being witnessed across the globe. The degradation/destruction of the natural world is already undermining the well-being of 3.2 billion people, or 40 percent of humanity – as well as leading to more flora and fauna species becoming extinct every year.
According to the United Nations, the situation is “rapidly reaching the point of no return for the planet. We face a triple environmental emergency – biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution”.
Mr. Tweneboa-Kodua indicated that the NHIA is fully participating in the tree-planting exercise, while stressing the need to sustain the exercise by making sure the trees are nurtured to a stage where they can be on their own.
Against this background, he entreated staff and the public to make a conscious effort to support this global action by taking personal responsibility to plant more trees in and around their surroundings.
