Tinubu Will Sign Bill To Raise Health Fund To 2% CRF – Senate

Bola Tinubu

The Senate has said that President Bola Tinubu will assent to the National Health Act Amendment Bill seeking to increase the Basic Health Care Provision Fund from one per cent to two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary), Senator Ipalibo Harry Banigo, recently assured health sector stakeholders, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to her, the amendment will strengthen primary healthcare services across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas and improve access to quality healthcare, especially for women, children and underserved communities.

She added that the current one per cent allocation under the 2014 National Health Act has become inadequate in view of Nigeria’s growing population and rising healthcare challenges.

Her words, “We had a National Health Act in 2014, and there was a provision for basic health care. But we know that this was only one per cent of the consolidated revenue fund. Our country’s population has been growing, and we still have a lot of preventable diseases that we should really attend to.

But particularly, what the Basic Health Care Provision Fund can do in addressing the issues at the primary health care level. This is because it has pathways that fund all the primary health care centres across our 774 local government areas directly.

It has now been taken by the Senate. We are also going to get concurrence from the House of Representatives, at which point it will now be taken to the President and Commander-in-Chief, Bola Tinubu, who is a very health-positive president. We have no doubts that he is going to assent to it.

Vaccines are a very important part of the care we give to our children and pregnant women to prevent a whole lot of preventable sicknesses.”

WOW.