AUTHORITIES in Gisagara District are set to launch a one-month intensive sensitisation campaign which aims at increasing the level of subscriptions to the community health insurance scheme, Mutuelle de Santé.

Current figures indicate that for this fiscal year, which started last July, only about 73 per cent of the district’s population have so far remitted their subscriptions to the scheme.

The district mayor, Leandre Karekezi, told a news conference on Wednesday that they are devising strategies to increase the numbers.

Among the envisaged measures, Karekezi said the district is set to launch a one-month mobilisation campaign targeting those who have not yet subscribed.

"We will first seek to identify those who are yet to subscribe. Then, we shall move from house-to-house discussing with them and looking at what is barring them from subscribing,” Karekezi said.

"We will also be looking at opportunities to offer these people jobs so that they are able to subscribe,” he added.

Last year the level of subscription was over 80 per cent, according to available figures.

Karekezi said the subscription rate had dropped due to several reasons including delays, mistakes in the categorisation of residents and reluctance amongst some residents to join informal savings groups, better known as Ibimina.

Ibimina are informal savings and credit groups which operate on the basis of contributions from members, who are mainly residents of the same village or settlement.

"We hope to achieve more subscriptions by the end of this fiscal year, Karekezi said.