2020 Budget: Experts advocate timely, full release of capital allocation for health

A coalition of health advocacy groups has urged the National Assembly to ensure early passage and release of the 2020 budgetary allocation for capital expenditure to health. They also appealed to the lawmakers to discharge their constitutional responsibility of effective supervision of health sector budget implementation. While praising the Federal government for the early submission of the 2020 budget to the National Assembly, the coalition, however, voiced concern that the proposed capital expenditure cannot meet the health needs of Nigeria’s almost 200 million people. The Partnership for Advocacy on Child and Family Health (PACFaH@Scale), a coalition of 23 civil society organisations, said the allocation is inadequate to “equip, repair, revamp and make fit for purpose the country’s overburdened and failing health infrastructure.” The group called on the Federal Government to prioritise the full release and ensure efficient and effective utilisation of budgetary allocations to capital expenditure in the health sector. President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday proposed a capital expenditure of N46 billion for the Ministry of Health in the 2020 appropriation bill he submitted to the National Assembly. Mr Buhari also proposed N44.5bn for the Basic Health Provision Fund (BHCPF) from an aggregate total expenditure of N10.33 trillion. The proposed budget for the health ministry is N4 billion short of the N51.1billion obtained in last year’s capital expenditure. Details of the budget proposal revealed that health came 11th as Works and Housing got the highest capital project allocation with N262 billion, almost six times that of health. A statement signed by the coalition’s spokesperson, Habib Sadauki, on Wednesday, said more worrisome is whether the funds will be released fully and timely as this has become the bane of the health sector over the years.