Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Monday, warned 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.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election in a signed press release recalled that in recent years, there have been bizarre claims of animals being held accountable for missing public funds, expressing worries that some of the fairytale-like claims were never investigated or punished to deter future offenders.
“Against the backdrop of dwindling resources that has been exacerbated by the withdrawal of support in certain areas of our healthcare services, it is important that every kobo budgeted for the health sector has to be maximally utilized,” Atiku said.
While urging the the federal government 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 specifically queried the federal government for not providing comprehensive information on how it plans to expend the over one billion dollars in the primary health sector.
Atiku noted that while healthcare, especially the primary sector deserves rapid investment in order to promote access to quality and affordable health services to Nigerians, he said it will be immoral of the government not to provide extensive details of how the money allotted for the purpose would be dispensed.
The statement reads: “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.”