It is highly ludicrous for Grand Cape Mount County Senator Dabah M. Varpilah to say government should expand revenue allocation in the health sector of Liberia to close gaps in the country's health system.
This is laughable because Senator Varpilah chairs the Senate Committee on Health, which presides over allocations in the National Budget for various sectoral ministries and agencies when the Executive submits the national instrument.
Senator Varpilah does not need and should not wait for a public forum, such as the launch of Global Fund Grant Cycle 7, to advocate for budgetary increments in Liberia's health sector.
"If you do not feel the burns of the weakened health system in the community, in the counties, in the villages, we do as the people's Representatives- because it is we that are there with them; to see a pregnant woman- showing up and there is no generator- electricity in the delivery room, if there is any in the community," Senator Varpilah lamented at the occasion recently.
However, we like to remind her that no one will drive this in the government but herself, as chair of health in the Liberian Senate. The onus is on the Grand Cape Mount Senator to rally her colleagues in the Senate to see a compelling need to increase the health budget when the Executive submits the national budget for the next fiscal period.
Years and again, we have observed that our national officials make statements during national occasions when they do not always mean what they say. Such statements are only meant to let the occasion go through, and then the rest is history.
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She pledged the 55th Legislature's renewed commitment to ensuring continuous engagement with relevant stakeholders, ministries, and agencies to appropriate significant funds for the Health Sector.
Deeds, it is said, speak louder than words. We find it very difficult to hope or believe that senators who failed to account for the budget at a recent retreat in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, would want to prioritize the health sector above their interests.
Our officials should stop lip-serving and mean what they say publicly because the people they represent and serve are listening. If their words do not transcend to practical actions on the ground, it could erode public trust.
The health sector of Liberia has deteriorated so badly to an extent that citizens are dying of curable sicknesses primarily because of lack of adequate support and sheer neglect. At the same time, officials who are ill spend huge amounts of money abroad on health, more often, only to have their remains brought back to the country as cargo.
