A FORMER former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, has drawn the attention of the Federal Government that claims that animals such as snakes, termites, and monkeys were responsible for the disappearance of public funds should not befall the $1.07 billion allocation to the health sector.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the last general election reportedly made the call in a statement in Abuja.
He warned that the federal government should not allow the fund to be misused.
The claim “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,” Atiku said.
He asserted that the federal government already has a plan to expand the $1.07 billion in the primary health sector.
“This amount is in addition to the N2.48 trillion, which had earlier been proposed for the health sector in the initial draft of the budget.
“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,” Atiku said.
He stressed that the mechanisms must be put in place to ensure the funds are used to improve healthcare services rather than vanish under suspicious circumstances.
He also called for a transparent and accountable framework to track how the allocated money would be spent for the benefit of the people.
The former vice president queried the federal government for not providing comprehensive information on how it plans to expand over one billion dollars in the primary health sector.
He noted that while healthcare, especially the primary sector deserves rapid investment to promote access to quality and affordable health services to Nigerians,.
He said it would be immoral of the government not to provide extensive details of how the money allotted for the purpose would be dispensed.
“This development gets even more troubling when the government equally announced that the $1.07 billion it is adding to the health sector at the sub-national level was mainly sourced through foreign loans and a fraction of it being provided through an international donor agency.
“In other words, Nigeria is expected to pay these loans back, and it is required that the Nigerian people know the details of these loans and that its expenditure must be conveyed in a policy envelope that will explain how it will be spent,” Atiku said.
He maintained that the failure of the government not to commit to a single physical infrastructure in expanding the budgetary provision smacks of fraud.
The ICIR can report that Atiku apprehensive referred back to February 2018 when a bizarre report trended of a snake swallowing N36 million from the vault of the Makurdi office of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The disappearance of the cash caused a public outcry.
At the time, the spokesperson of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, admitted a case of fraud and criminality in the Benue State office.
The registrar then put a stop to the sale of its scratch cards to curb corruption.