Nigeria health minister disowns ministry’s budget, says “rats” have doctored proposal

On what is the latest in the spate
of controversies dogging
President Muhammadu Buhari’s
2016 budget, the Nigerian Federal
Ministry of Health has disowned
the budget proposal submitted on
its behalf by the Ministry of
Budget and National Planning.
Health Minister, Isaac Adewole,
who addressed the Senate
Committee on Health during its
budget defence session on
Monday, said the proposal drawn
up by the ministry and submitted
to the budget office had been
doctored and that “foreign”
appropriations, different from
what was submitted, had been
sneaked in.
“We have to look into the details
of the budget and re-submit it to
the committee,” he said. “This was
not what we submitted. We’ll
submit another one. We don’t
want anything foreign to creep
into that budget. What we
submitted is not there.”
Mr. Adewole’s revelation is the
latest of controversies and
embarrassing disclosures trailing
the 2016 budget proposed by
President Buhari and currently
being considered by the National
Assembly.
Last week, the Senate had
discovered a sum of N10 billion
“questionably smuggled” into the
budget of the Ministry of
Education for an allegedly
questionable subhead.
A senior Presidency official also
told PREMIUM TIMES that a
“budget mafia” was responsible
for the embarrassing allocations
in the budget.
Stating further, Mr. Adewole
lamented that the proposed
appropriations in the budget
before the National Assembly ran
parallel with the priorities of the
health sector as contained in the
“original budget.”
While some important agencies in the health
sector had been excluded, votes proposed by
the ministry had been redistributed, he said.
“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 keeping with our priorities.
“There is nothing allocated to public health
and family health.”
While discarding the budget, he therefore
asked the committee not to work with the
budget before it but wait for another one to be
re-submitted.
He also expressed surprise that
appropriations were made for some subheads
that were generating controversies, whereas
no conclusion had been reached on the
amount required.
On the State House clinic whose capital vote
exceeded cumulative capital vote for teaching
hospitals, Mr. Adewole said, “The State House
Clinic is not under the Ministry of Health. I
hope it’s not the same rats that changed things
in our budget that changed it.
“The amount is meant for procurement and
purchase of medical equipment. It is very
important that you engage them because what
happened to us might have also happened to
them. It is possible that what is there might
not have been what they put there.”
Meanwhile, the Minister allayed public fear on
Zika virus, saying Nigerians had developed
resistance to the virus, which, according to
him, had been in the country since 1954.