FG harps on healthcare budgetary evaluation impacts on Nigerians

Health Minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire

The Federal Government has said Monitoring and Evaluation has now become a major part of its budgetary process focusing on assessing the impacts projects and programmes have on average Nigerians rather than just funds releases and spending.

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, Mamman Mamouda, in his keynote address at the “Stakeholders Engagement to Analyse Health Sector’s 2022: Its Implementation and Monitoring” meeting, held in Abuja said the Ministry has been supporting the Budget Office of the Federation in the Monitoring of Health Sector MDAs projects and programmes across the six (6) geopolitical zones of the country.

Mamouda who was represented by the Director of Health Planning and Statistics, Dr Ngozi Azodo, said it is imperative to, therefore, reiterate that during these difficult times, particular attention must be paid to cost-effectiveness and diligence in the execution of health projects and programmes.

“They must be tightly managed to ensure that the Public being our targets get value for money as envisioned in the mandate of the Ministry.”

“I want to assure you that Government will not hesitate to give its maximum support in this direction and will as well not relent to sanction any breach of laid down procedures,” Mamouda assured.

He disclosed that one of the objectives of the engagement Is to review the 2021 Budget performance and analyse the 2022 Budget to ensure the delivery of the Health Sector’s mandate.

“You will recall that in my address during the bilateral discussions on the preparation of the 2022 budget by Departments, Agencies and Parastatals under the Ministry, held in August 2021, I drew your attention to the fact that projected revenues and expenditures for the year 2022 by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP) fell short of the year 2021 projections and actuals owing to Federal Government low revenues, increasing personnel and pensions as well as debt services costs.”

“I consequently enjoined you to project funds for completion of on-going projects, especially those nearing completion and give emphasis on actual NEEDS priorities in the Medium Term National Development Plan (MINDP) 2021 to 2025 rather than new projects.”

“As you are aware, Monitoring and Evaluation helps in identifying the most valuable and efficient ways of utilization of resources as well as being critical for developing objective conclusions on how projects and programmes can be adjudged successful,” he said.

Similarly, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, in his speech also disclosed that the Commission drives a project tracking and monitoring exercise towards enforcing the execution of the federal-funded projects at the standard of qualitative value for money (released resources) and the Health Sector is one of the thematic areas of the tracking initiative.

According to him, the Commission has monitored health sector-related projects in all our tracking exercises and has followed through to ensure that unexecuted and/or abandoned health projects are completed while completed ones are followed up to ensure they are put to use.

“Most recently we monitored the implementation of capital for the Federal Ministry of Health for 2020 and 2021. We made recoveries bordering on nonexecution of health-related training and non-adherence to specification in the supply of some medical equipment.”

“For instance, a total sum of N3.8million was recovered from a two-day project comprising Hall rent and lunch cost in respect of training of staff in the Ministry’s headquarters that was not executed.”

“We are currently investigating some contractors with a view to establishing collusion between them and officials of the ministry. An investigation is equally ongoing on some COVID -19 related spending in some health institutions and the findings thus far are not too palatable.”

“The procurement lapses identified in most of the tracked projects were many and evidence to establish them is being collated. The lapses include over-invoicing and the use of the Bill of Engineering Management and Evaluation (BEME) which lack detailed specifications for contracts. Trackers were not able to tell in an absolute sense what quality of work was envisaged.”

He however said further to corruption allegations handled and review activities carried out by the Commission in the Ministry and subsequent suspension of procurement activities, it is expected that lessons are learnt and a new leaf turned to sanitize the process for better service delivery and accountability.

“We recommend among other things that Bills of Quantities be used for procurement purposes since they are more detailed in descriptions and specifications.”

“This will help whoever is supervising or tracking the projects to have more details to track what is being executed. Ultimately it will prevent Contractors from doing poor jobs on the excuse that there are not enough details.”

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