Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has cautioned the federal government to ensure that the $1.07 billion allocated to the health sector in the 2025 budget is properly utilized. He stressed the need for accountability, warning against any mismanagement of the funds.
In a statement issued in Abuja, Atiku called for a strict monitoring system to ensure the money is used to improve healthcare services rather than disappear under unclear circumstances. He expressed concerns over past incidents where public funds allegedly went missing under questionable claims.
Atiku noted that Nigerians have previously heard strange reports of public funds being lost, with animals such as snakes, monkeys, and termites being blamed. He insisted that such incidents must not happen with the funds allocated for healthcare.
“To this end, the Federal Government has to be deliberate about putting mechanisms in place for public audit and accountability in its US$1.07 billion budgetary appropriation in the health sector,” he stated.
The former Vice President also questioned why the federal government had not provided clear details on how the funds would be spent. He pointed out that while investment in the health sector is necessary to improve access to quality healthcare, the government must provide transparency regarding how the money will be used.
“We have read that the Federal Government has a plan to expend a whooping sum of $1.07 billion in the primary health sector. This amount is in addition to the N2.48 trillion, which had earlier been proposed for the health sector in the initial draft of the budget.
“This development gets even more troubling when the government equally announced that the $1.07 billion it is adding to the health sector at the sub-national level was mainly sourced through foreign loans and a fraction of it being provided through an international donor agency.
“In other words, Nigeria is expected to pay these loans back and it is required that the Nigerian people know the details of these loans and that its expenditure must be conveyed in a policy envelop that will explain how it will be spent,” Atiku noted.
He said further that the ”failure of the Federal Government not to commit to a single physical infrastructure in expending the budgetary provision smacks of fraud”, warning that claims “of animals such as snakes, termites, gorillas and monkeys swallowing public funds must never be the fate of the funds budgeted for the critical sector of health in the 2025 Budget.”
