Why we didn’t utilise our 2025 capital budget, by health minister

The Minister of Health, Prof. Mohammed Ali Pate, has said his ministry could not utilise any aspect of its capital budget for last year, despite getting only N36 million out of the N218 billion budgeted for the year.

Pate, who spoke at a budget defence session with the House Committee on Healthcare Services, explained that while the total personnel budget for the ministry was released and spent, the same thing could not be said of the capital budget.

The minister said the difference arose from the bottom-up cash plan of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

He told the lawmakers that the ministry was also unable to access some counterpart funding as a result of delays in releasing the Nigerian counterpart fund.

Pate said last year’s capital budget had issues as the year’s implementation was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.

He said: “Nigeria’s Health Sector is guided by Vision 20:2020, the Medium-Term (National Development Plan (NDP)/2021-2075) and the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II.

“The overarching goal of the Nigerian Constitution and the National Health Act (NHAC) is to guarantee the right to health for all Nigerians. The 2016 National Health Policy provides an implementation framework to translate the provisions of the NHAct and the Sustainable Development Goals into healthy lives and well-being for all Nigerian citizens.

“The tenets of Universal Health Coverage are central to the goal of National Health Policy ‘To strengthen Nigeria’s health system, particularly the Primary Health Care subsystem, to deliver quality, effective, efficient, equitable, accessible, affordable, acceptable and comprehensive health care services to all Nigerians’.”

Pate announced that the policies and strategies of this year’s budget are derivable from the 2026 — 2028 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF & FSP) which outlines the development priorities of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).

He said: “In effect, the Year 2026 proposed budget of the ministry was prepared using the budget preparation system on the GIFMIS platform, which is compatible with the National Development Plan 2021 – 2025 approach (which demands justification and allocation of resources to projects and programmes in a given fiscal year based on actual needs), and aligning with the policy thrust of Government, especially as encapsulated in the core objectives and execution priorities of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2021 – 2025 and the Ministerial Deliverables of the present Administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

The minister explained that the ministry’s “budget proposal for 2026 is based on the National Health Policy 2016 and is guided by the new FMoH Strategic Blueprint Initiatives, which are the health sector policy instruments for achieving the Ministerial Deliverables of the Federal Government and the global agenda of Universal Health Coverage (UHC)”.

Pate added: “The National Health Policy 2016, with the theme: ‘Promoting the Health of Nigerians to Accelerate Socio-economic Development,’ provides the basis for the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II and the supporting framework for accelerated implementation of the National Health Act (NHAct) 2014.”

Chairman of the House Committee on Healthcare Services, Amos Gwamna Magaji, asked the minister to furnish the committee with all relevant documents on all donor funds received by the ministry and how these funds were utilised.

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