By Idris Khalid
Bauchi state Government has assured of paying the N300 million counterpart funding to Development Partners on Healthcare delivery in the state under one roof championed by the United Nations agencies and other international donors anchored by the Dangote and Bill Gates Foundations
Governor Bala Mohammed who made the assurance said, “We are told that we are lacking in some few areas especially the release of the required amount of about N300 million to the basket fund despite the fact they have released their own counterpart in timely to the health programme”.
He was speaking Yesterday with Aliko Dangote through cameral meeting, and whose foundation and the Bill Gate Foundation are partners to the United Nations health programme, attributed the delay by the state to release its counterpart funding to COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges of Internally generated revenue (IGR).
The United Nations and Development Partners, Governor Bala submitted, have requested the state government to take the health care delivery issue to secondary level as contained in the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) under the programme.
Bala said, “They want to see how far we have taken the issue of provision of healthcare in Bauchi to the level that is expected by Development Partners, MoU that we have signed whereby we want bring the provision of health to bring it to the lower under one roof”.
“They meant taking it to the secondary level and the state will be able to develop the human capital, the resources and the rest to make it tick so that at the end of the day our people will benefit from its”.
Governor Bala noted that despite the state government’s meeting with Local Government Chairmen in the state over the issue, they have not been meeting with Primary Healthcare Development Agency (PHCDA) and the Ministry of Health to ensure community engagement in terms of sensitization in this regard.
“These are the only two out of the seven realizes that we have not been able to achieved, but I’m happy we have at least scored 70 percent in those areas for the State and Local Government Councils”, he concluded
