House blames Presidency for failed health legislations

The House of Representatives has called Nigeria’s inability to uphold the Abuja Declaration requiring African nations to commit 15 percent of national budget to health, as “sad and shameful,” blaming the executive for stalled commitments. Deputy chairman of the House committee on primary health care, Mohammed Usman, said more than a decade after the agreement […]

The House of Representatives has called Nigeria’s inability to uphold the Abuja Declaration requiring African nations to commit 15 percent of national budget to health, as “sad and shameful,” blaming the executive for stalled commitments.

Deputy chairman of the House committee on primary health care, Mohammed Usman, said more than a decade after the agreement was ratified in Abuja, “smaller countries have gone beyond 10 percent but Nigeria was dwindling between 3.8 and 5.9 percent. It is a very shameful thing.”

Speaking at the inauguration of a nine-member committee to draft legislation in support of the Immunisation Trust Fund, Usman blamed the executive for failing to implement legislations passed by the National Assembly.

“The legislature does its job. The mandate of execution and implementation lies with the executive. That’s where we have the problem. We are where we are today because many of the laws, as defective as sthey are, are never implemented,” he noted.

Usman named the National Health Act, passed since December 2014, among laws yet to be implemented. The Act specifically calls for 1 percent of consolidated revenue to pay for the Basic Health Fund, but the fund has never been figured into the budget.

“We will be meeting with ministers to know the status – whether the government is really going to commence implementation, put it in the year 2017 budget,” said Usman.

He is also part of the 9-member committee to draft legislation in support of the Immunisation Trust Fund, which he hinted could get speedy passage through the legislature, considering a pressure to increase government expenditure on immunisation at least fourfold by 2020.

The resulting law will back a special task force to coopt state governments, private sector and philanthropists to contribute to funding Nigeria needs to pay for immunisation and encourage local production of vaccines.

“The time has come to do more. The ultimate result is just around the corner,” the acting executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Emmanuel Odu, said while inaugurating the committee. Vaccines until now are paid for by counterpart funding from federal government and international donors, who have signalled they were gradually winding down of their support.

“By the time the law comes, we are confident that given the fact that people appreciate the benefit of immunisation and the impact vaccines have achieved all around the world, we are confident that stakeholders are going to buy into it significantly,” said Odu.

Odu said Nigeria’s was pressured by lean resources, a contracting market for vaccine and a growing population of children in need of immunisation.

Chika Offor, managing director for Vaccine Network, which represents Women Advocates for Vaccine Access and an accountability coalition TrackHealth, said: “We cannot rest until the last child gets immunised. Vaccines save lives but cost money.”