Budget: Ministry to spend N874m on HIV/AIDS, mosquito nets

Total national spending proposed for health is N257.54b—all to pour into personnel, apart from N5.23b for overhead and N20b for capital development—less than N262b was proposed for health last year.FMOH proposes to spend N5.01b on personnel, less than N5.76 from last year—alongside N4.38b in salaries.Allowances and social contribution—like health insurance and pension contributions on behalf […]

Total national spending proposed for health is N257.54b—all to pour into personnel, apart from N5.23b for overhead and N20b for capital development—less than N262b was proposed for health last year.
FMOH proposes to spend N5.01b on personnel, less than N5.76 from last year—alongside N4.38b in salaries.
Allowances and social contribution—like health insurance and pension contributions on behalf of its workers—will gulp N629.36m.
FMOH headquarters own overhead will take N528.49m, according to the proposal.
A breakdown indicates travel and transport for ministry officials will cost N105.2. This year—nearly N83.28m less than the figure proposed for travel and transport in 2014.
But its utilities spending totaling N45.76m in 2015 will be N12m higher than in 2014. Under utilities spending, N25m will pay for electricity, N5.7m for telephone rates and N15m for water rates.
Alongside that, N95.08m will be spent to maintain the ministry’s vehicles, office furniture, building and residential quarters and IT equipment.
A separate N84.33m will be spent on fuel and lubricants for the ministry’s vehicles and generators, and another N20 to clean and fumigate its premises.
Stationery will cost N35.34m, and magazines and periodicals distributed throughout the ministry will gulp N30m. At least N7.5m is earmarked for disbursement as staff loans and advances, nearly triple the N2.37m that FMOH will spend on bank charges other than interest.
The bank charges are expected to accrue from using new cashless payroll system, but FMOH proposes to spend another N124m to monitor compliance to electronic payment as well as N150.83m to assess and audit “FMOH headquarters and its agencies to achieve transparency,” the proposal says. Both are among ongoing projects FMOH will undertake in 2015.
By comparison, FMOH will spend N10m to monitor and follow up on its projects, estimated at a total N7.56b throughout 2015. The extent of projects is varied, many of them begun last year, and now categorized as “ongoing”.
Among them, renovation of FMOH headquarters building, rehabilitation of Medicine Store, purchase of office furniture and computers will cost N443.6m.
Branded antiretroviral drugs and test kits for HIV/AIDS management under the millennium development goals project will cost N728.74m, and N145.06m will be spent on mosquito nets, according to the budget proposal.
In 2015, at least N20m would have been paid out for preparing the budget itself and another N328.27m spent on bilateral sessions with disparate groups to harmonise the health sector’s budget and defend it before the Budget Office of the Federation and the National Assembly.