Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has sounded the alarm on the potential mismanagement of the $1.07 billion allocated to the health sector in the 2025 budget.
In a statement on Sunday, he emphasized the need for transparent and accountable mechanisms to ensure the funds are utilized effectively to improve healthcare services.
Atiku stated, “To this end, the Federal Government has to be deliberate about putting mechanisms in place for public audit and accountability in its US$1.07 billion budgetary appropriation in the health sector.”
He also expressed concerns over the lack of comprehensive information on how the funds will be expended, particularly in the primary health sector.
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The former Vice President warned that the government’s failure to provide details on the allocation and expenditure of the funds “smacks of fraud.”
He posited that the Nigerian people have a right to know how the funds, largely sourced from foreign loans, will be spent.
Atiku’s concerns are not unfounded, given the country’s history of mismanaging public funds.
He cautioned that the allocation should not suffer the same fate as previous instances where funds allegedly went missing, with some attributing the losses to improbable causes such as snakes, monkeys, and termites swallowing public funds.
Atiku warned, “the failure of the Federal Government not to commit to a single physical infrastructure in expending the budgetary provision smacks of fraud”, and cautioned that “claims of animals such as snakes, termites, gorillas and monkeys swallowing public funds must never be the fate of the funds budgeted for the critical sector of health in the 2025 Budget.”
via: Information Nigeria
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