Francis Okeke
10 January 2009
Revelations from the House of Representatives have shown that 11Federal Medical Centres across the country lost the opportunity to utilize N5 billion due to what lawmakers termed "over-centralization" of duties by the Federal Ministry of Health.
In a budget appraisal and defense session organized by House Committee on Health for the Ministry of Health, the MPs decried the level of bureaucratic bottlenecks which militated against effective utilization of funds appropriated for the ministry in the 2008 fiscal year.
Chairman of the Committee, Alaba Ojomo (PDP, Ondo) echoing the minds of his colleagues also condemned some decisions taken by the ministry which had not helped in effective implementation of the budget.
His words: "It is over-centralisation that has led to 11 Federal Medical Centres losing about N5billion worth of equipment because the Ministry must purchase these for them. If they had been given their budget and had said 'okay, use this and take to buy equipment,' I am sure that they would meet those entire available deadlines.
"The point I have gathered from what my colleagues have said, it is over-centralisation that will lead to a CT Scan being sited in a psychiatric hospital that does not have EPG and it is over-centralisation that will make a contractor, given a contract of the sum of N25 million to come all the way from Enugu to Abuja, before he can perform. Or rather, it is Abuja that will appoint the contractor for the exercise in Enugu when the management there could do that."
In his presentation, the newly appointed Minister of Health, Babatunde Osotimehin in his presentation pleaded with the lawmakers to continue to support the ministry, just as he pledged determination to improve the relationship between the two.
He told the committee that severe disruptions in the smooth running of the ministry last year was responsible for the poor percentage of implementation of the ministry's budget. "As you may recall, last year, the ministry lost two ministers and other senior directors and this was a severe disruption in the smooth running of the ministry."
Osotimehin, while presenting the 2009 budget proposals of the ministry to the committee called on the Reps to always endeavour to involve the ministry when engaging any of its agencies and parastatals in order to have conflicting issues clarified when necessary.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
