More than N203 billion has been released so far by the federal government, through the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF), to fix facilities in 8, 800 primary healthcare centres out of the over 40,000 of such centres in the country. This leaves a gap of about 32,000 facilities that are not reached with the one per cent consolidated revenue fund implementation through BHCPF as approved by the Establishment Act.
The disclosure was made at the weekend in Abuja in a presentation by acting National Coordinator of the Global Fund’s Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) in Nigeria, Ibrahim Tajudeen, at the national media meeting on the global fund malaria community-led monitoring project.
Tajudeen also said the global fund had made available about $1. 8 million grant through the national malaria programme for the training of frontline health workers in the 13 states where the fund was currently executing anti-malaria programmes.
However, Nigeria National Coordinator, Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN), organisers of the programme, Ayo Ipinmoye, said under the new policy, efforts should be shifted to community-led monitoring of health sector interventions in order to make them more result-oriented.
Ipinmoye said funding for primary healthcare delivery should be carefully mapped out and sanctions applied against any misappropriation or mismanagement to enable a robust public health programme at the ward levels in local governments.
