FG urged to fast-track release of basic healthcare fund

Stakeholders from civil society and government sectors have enjoined the federal government to fast track the speedy disbursement of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund to ensure quality maternal and child healthcare delivery, and other health services. They made the call yesterday during the validation meeting for the motion tracker on strengthening the fulfillment of the commitments of Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) Global Strategy for Women’s, children and Adolescents Health, 2016-2030, and Family Planning (FP2020).

Coordinator of Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR), Dr Aminu Magashi Garba said doing so also meant that there was a need to track the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund as well as tracking the country’s health budget from allocation, releases, disbursement and performance every year.

He said the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund was lying fallow in the Ministry of Health.

He said: “Last year, N55bilion was allocated for the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund and N51billion was allocated in the 2019 budget. We have to track this money to know where it’s going and how it will impact on the lives of the people of Nigeria.

“From what we have tracked so far, 25 percent of the N51billion allocated has been released to the Federal Ministry of Health, and in a dedicated CBN account; that money is still sitting in the account, it has not been disbursed to the state government and agencies that are supposed to deliver it. That means the money is not useful for now, because it is still inside the account, so we are calling on the federal government to hasten the disbursement and to also ensure accountability of the spending of the funding.”