Safe motherhood: FG tasked on health budgeting

The Federal government has been urged to keep to its pledge of committing  15 per cent of its annual budget to the health sector in order to improve maternal and child health service delivery in the country.

Stakeholders in the health sector made this known last week at the Development Communications’ 8th quarterly Civil Society-Media forum with the theme: Health Budgeting in Nigeria; trend and implication for maternal and child health service delivery.

Speaking, the Secretary General, Nigeria Network of NGOs (NNNGO), Barrister Ayo Adebusoye said, In  2001, the African Union countries met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to improve the health sector, and Nigeria was part of it but “what is obvious is that Nigeria is very low on budget performance generally and for the health sector, we only have about 4 per cent as at 2016, which is even less that what we had in 2015.”

One quick way forward, according to him, is that “there needs to be an emergency declared in the health sector because Nigeria is the second leading country with maternal and child mortality in the world.”

He said, “Since the National Health Act was passed, nothing has been done tangibly budget-wise to make sure it works.  The government must make sure that before the 2016 budget is passed, the 1 per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be included in the budget for the health sector.”

Training, Research and Communications Officer, DevComs, Mrs Abiodun Owo said, the government need to be accountable with respect to maternal and child healthcare.

“A good starting point will be to live up to the promises made in 2001 about allocating 15 per cent of the budget to the health sector. If our government can be true to their promise even though, I’m not sure that allocation will be the entire solution but I want to believe that it must have been backed up with some evidences.

“The right thing should be put in the right place. Maternal and child health service delivery must be prioritised to stop maternal and child mortality in the country.”

A veteran journalist, Mr Sola Ogundipe who spoke on telling budget stories said, the major role of the media is agenda setting.

He said a budget is meant to be participatory, efficient, transparent, adequate, accountable and realistic.

Ogundipe said, journalists must endeavour to relate their stories to women and children to make impact.