The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the legality of the Federal Government’s involvement in the management of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) and Housing programmes, among others in the country.
The resolution was passed sequel to the observation made by the Speaker, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, on the propriety of the Federal Government’s involvement in the establishment and management of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) which he said was supposed to be the responsibility of the Local Government.
While expressing reservation over the provisions of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency Act, Hon. Gbajabiamila asked: “this issue of primary healthcare, under whose jurisdiction is it supposed to be? Is it the Federal or is it the States?
“Because for me it is a State matter, even though the Federal Government has delved into it which they should not. But let us look at it constitutionally first. Is it a state matter or is it a federal matter?
“If you look at your Exclusive List and the Concurrent List, you would not see primary healthcare there, which means, it is now reserved for the States in the Residual List. That is why people are calling for the devolution of powers.
“But Hon Sergius is right, for as long as we already have established primary healthcare established by the Federal Government which I think is illegal, we may have to address the motion and look into that issue of addressing once and for all whether primary healthcare is under the Federal Government or States.
“As a House, we need to do something important. We look for the good of the country. It is not just primary health. I have taken the time to look at some other agencies. Indeed even housing is not under the exclusive list, neither is it on the concurrent list, which means it is squarely for the states and the Federal Government has no business in housing, at least under our constitution.
“So I think we should suspend our rules and when we finish with this (motion) have a committee look into whether or not certain agencies are properly situated under the Federal Government or their establishment contradicts the constitution.
“That would include primary healthcare, housing and any other based strictly on the constitution as it is today. It is important and like you said it is a drain on the finances of the government.”
In his intervention, Deputy Minority Leader, Hon Toby Okechukwu, who stressed the need to carry out an investigation into Primary Healthcare Centres across the country, said: “This call to investigate the primary health centres as enabled by Section 3B of the National Primary Health Development Agency is quite important. And you know in 2017 the Federal Government made move to revitalisation the health centres in each of the Senatorial zones.
“But as you rightly pointed out, in letter and spirit, should this actually be a Federal Government responsibility? This Federal Government is overweight. It is just too heavy. Any concurrence regarding health is not primary health. It is health and where the expectation is for them to play their roles is teaching hospitals as being within the jurisdiction of federal universities.
“I think that when we continually make expenditures in jurisdiction that are not ours, we waste our time because there is no follow up. How do you expect the federal ministry of health or the national primary health agency to post doctors and nurses to all 109 Senatorial Districts, maintain the facilities and be able to make policies.
“Mr Speaker, it would not work. Practically it cannot work. So this call is germane. After finding the status, we should now find out whether by practice or in reality, it is properly situated in the primary health agency, or whether the agency has to be abrogated so that the funding available should go to the States and Local Government.
“There is a plethora of health centres by Local Governments, but most of them are people by quacks and that is why we now dissipate energy. Federal Government is doing, State is doing and Local Government is doing. We need to invest prudently if this our system would work.”
In his remarks, Hon Ahmed Kakale observed that as far as the Constitution is concerned, primary healthcare is under the Residual List and the functions of primary healthcare are based on their functions which include: prevention and treatment of common endemic diseases like malaria, typhoid, Lassa fever and maternal mortality and we have really not gotten it well all through the country.
Hon Kakale said: “the origin of the primary healthcare development agency was in a good concept and development of that sector by Professor Ransome Kuti which was initially an intervention.
“Now for almost 30 years, it has been there without really achieving what it should. 99 per cent of primary healthcare centres are under the agency, none of them is functioning. A functioning primary healthcare centre should have at least 10 components.
“They are not functional with the huge money budgeted for the agency yearly of N20 billion and above. As stipulated in Chapter 1 of the Constitution that any law that is contrary to the constitution should be null and void. I believe the National Primary Healthcare Act as far as the law is concerned is non-existent and should be reverted to the states where they belong.
“We have serious problems of health in this country and they are mainly primary healthcare based. Unless we get it right, we would not be able to achieve our objectives,” he noted.
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