Medical Aid Body Has Knives Out for Gantsho

Medical schemes in South Africa have long been unhappy with the heavy-handed behaviour of its regulator Monwabisi Gantsho. He is the CEO and registrar of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), the medical aid body for registered schemes.

Gantsho (pictured below) has been put on long leave while. Meanwhile the medical aid body is investigatin him for bribery and corruption. Yes, the medical aid industry has knives out for Gantsho.

What BHF Says About the Chief of the Medical Aid Body

This week, the MD of the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), Humphrey Zokufa, said members had been complaining for a long time that Gantsho was “arrogant, aggressive and heavy handed” in his approach.

He added that the registrar acting in that way went against section six of the Medical Schemes Levies Act and said that the medical aid industry had suffered because of the breakdown of their relationship with the registrar.

Zokufa gave an as example of where the industry had felt particularly aggrieved: the insistence of the registrar that medical schemes should pay prescribed minimum benefits in full, while the Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, had said that this should not be the case.. This had been the situation since 2010.

“I commend the council for saying it will investigate the allegations. I would further commend it if it would suspend the registrar.”

Professor Yosuf Veriava, the chairman of the CMS, has arranged meet Zokufa to discuss the concerns raised by the BHF.

Daniel Lehutjo, chief financial officer of the CMS, is acting registrar.

* The CMS is probing the claim that Gantsho solicited a R3 million bribe to sort out his tax issues. Gantsho allegedly asked high profile lawyer, Themba Langa, who was overseeing the Medshield scheme, one of the country’s largest schemes with 174,000 members, to pay the amount into two separate bank accounts.

Gantsho claims Langa lied about the bribe in revenge for Gantsho pointing out that Langa had wasted money by approving a payment of R10 million for the Medshield logo. Langa says he did well to negotiate the payment down from R30 million. Read our earlier article about the allegations.

All info was correct at time of publishing