2016 Budget Defence: Health Minister Disowns Health Budget Over Inflated Figures

The Health Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has announced that the original budget of his ministry was distorted and strange figures smuggled in.

Speaking on Monday, the minister asked the Senate Committee on Health to discard the budget before it and await a new one to be re-submitted today which he said would reflect the programmes of the health sector in 2016.

He added that some of the votes earmarked by the ministry for some activities had been re-distributed while some important fields in the sector had been excluded.

“In the revised budget as re-submitted, N15.7 billion for capital allocation has been moved to other areas. Some allocations made are not in line with our priorities. There is nothing allocated to public health and family health. Over the last two years, nothing has been done on HIV.”

The committee chairman said given the submission of the minister, the budget before the committee was not the proposal of the Health Ministry and would therefore, be of no use working on a budget that had already been disowned.

Adewole also revealed that State House Clinic to which N3.9 billion had been allocated in the budget at the expense of other hospitals put together which got far less allocations, is not under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.

He allayed the fears of Nigerians about Zika virus that is currently ravaging the United States and Brazil, saying the virus has actually been in Nigeria since 1954 but has been unable to harm citizens because Nigerians have developed strong resistance to it.