The Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) coalition, a media/civil society group in Gombe State has described as grossly inadequate, the allocation to the health sector in the 2017 appropriation.
Speaking during the budget defense of the Ministry of Health at the Gombe State House of Assembly, the Chairman of the Coalition, Comrade Alhassan Yahaya said the allocation to the health sector has fallen short of the 2001 Abuja declaration of making health budget to be at least, 15 per cent of the total budget.
Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo had recently presented the 2017 budget estimate of eighty-five billion, five hundred and ninety-five million, four hundred and sixty-nine thousand, five hundred and seventy-three naira, five kobo (N85,595,469,573.05) to the Gombe State House of Assembly where the health sector was allocated only two billion, five-hundred and seventy-one million, four hundred thousand naira (N2,571,400,000.00).
But according to the MNCH Coalition chairman, though mindful of the dwindling economic fortunes in the country and Gombe State in particular, for Gombe state to boost of a strong work force, the health sector has to be prioritized.
Comrade Alhassan said, “Looking at the approved budget in our health sector in 2016 and estimate in 2017, allocations to health sector is grossly inadequate. From our 2016 analyses, the percentage allocated to health was 9.7 per cent. This was grossly inadequate looking at the growth rate of 3.2 per cent and the influx of internally displaced persons”.
He said, though the administration had done a lot in terms of infrastructural development covering virtually all sectors including the women and children hospital, but most of the budget lines are not adequate to address issues of women and children.
He said the state is expected to conduct two MNCH weeks but that there is no budget line to address that adding that the MNCH free services and many other sub-sectors in the health sector have very low allocation.
The Speaker of the House, Honourable Abubakar Salisu Nono who was present at the budget defense immediately asked the House Committees on Appropriation and that of Health to jack up the allocation for the health sector due to its importance.
