The Port Health Service (PHS) in Jos, a unit of the Federal Ministry of Health in Plateau State, has been accused of defrauding people by making them pay for the same service twice.

Olu Awolowo, a Plateau State-based SME owner, told FIJ that the PHS portal provider only confirms a few payments, forcing applicants to make subsequent payments for the same issuance.

He said that he went to the PHS office in Jos on September 2 to make a payment for his yellow vaccine card but was directed to a shop behind the office.

The SME owner told FIJ the staffer who attended to him said he would pay N2,500 online and N1,000 in cash to her.

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“Forty minutes after I had left the PHS, a staffer called me and said they needed me to appear at their office. She said that I needed to come because the money I paid was pending,” Awolowo told FIJ.

“I told her they had debited the money from my account and sent the alert to her, but she claimed I paid to the wrong account, which could not have happened because Remita does not work that way.”

When Awolowo got to the PHS centre, the staff asked him to return the yellow card, but he refused to let go of it.

“Before I even got there, I told Remita about the issue. Remita sent almost eight receipts to prove that the transfer was complete. When I showed them, they disagreed. They would rather ask me to pay again,” Awolowo said.

He said that following the PHS workers’ refusal to accept what he presented as true, he called Remita to complain the second time, but the call representative told him it was typical of the company to dispute people’s payment status.

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“The Remita staffer said the PHS had been that way to make people pay for the same thing twice. Remita said the PHS was supposed to call their portal service provider to upgrade the payment so that it would reflect,” he said.

Awolowo said that he sent a direct message to Remita on Twitter, and after providing the RRR code, the Twitter admin confirmed that the payment was successful.

“The Twitter admin asked me to send the name and number of the PHS portal service provider. But when I spoke to the provider, he was rude. He said he was no longer the service provider,” Awolowo said.

When FIJ called the PHS in Jos via one of its staff members, the organisation claimed Awolowo’s claims were not true.

FIJ also asked if Awolowo’s payment status had reflected, but she said it was still pending.