The Special Adviser to the President on Health, Salma Ibrahim-Anas, has said the president plans to increase the annual budgetary allocation to the health sector by 10 percent.
She added that there is also the possibility of an additional increment if the allocation is managed judiciously.
Ibrahim-Anas spoke at the health summit organised by Gatefield in Abuja on Tuesday.
She decried the low budgetary allocation to the sector, which she said presently stands at less than five percent, assuring that the president was committed to financing the health sector.
She said,
“The president himself, even before anybody advocated, has said he is going to increase allocations for health. He will start from 10 percent of the total budgetary allocation which must go to health and that is just the beginning.
“Based on our demonstration of capacity to utilise, and an indication of accountability, he is going to increase more and that is just the beginning. He has challenged us to do that, to demonstrate those capacities. And he is ready to support us, to mobilise additional resources wherever they are.”
She also assured that sugar taxes will be fully dedicated to health or at least most of it, while decrying that Nigeria has an excessive consumption of sugar drinks.
Ibrahim-Anas said as a result, the country was battling with non-communicable diseases, significant causes of death accounting for almost 29 percent.
She also disclosed plans by the government to increase the number of Primary Health Care centres from one per ward to two.
Speaking, Lead Strategist at Gatefield, Adewumi Emorura, said taxes on sugar and tobacco provide an opportunity to raise funding for health and nutrition intervention.
“Nobody talks about the 11 million people with diabetes, the millions of people exposed to abdominal obesity. It is a real thing affecting Nigerians and it is associated with hypertension, stroke, and cancer. Only six percent (tax) is going to health,” Emorura stated.