Dangote asks Kano gov to audit 2016 polio immunization account

(By Desmond Mgoh – KANO)

Billionaire businessman and Chairman of Dangote Foundation, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has asked the government of Kano State to employ the services of external assessors to audit the 2016 account of the polio immunization exercise in the state.

The Kano-born businessman spoke during a teleconference Monday night, January 9, featuring partners in the polio immunization exercise, namely himself, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Kano state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

Also present at the teleconference was Mallam Nasir el Rufai, the Kaduna State Governor, who last year signed a similar tripartite arrangement with Dangote Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In the televised conference at Government House, attended by stakeholders and donor agencies such as UNICEF, the Clinton Health Access initiative and WHO, Alhaji Dangote requested the state government to submit the audited account to the partners by March 31st 2017.

Dangote reiterated the position of many speakers at the conference who had faulted the quality of data collated by officials of the immunization exercise, while charging the participating states to scale up the quality of the data collection process by their field officers.

In his remarks, Governor Ganduje appreciated the project partners for their intervention, recalling that when the state signed the project MOU four years ago, Kano State was a flashpoint of polio in the region.

He also expressed his appreciation for the partners’ extending the immunization program in the state by an additional year.

The governor commended traditional and religious institutions in the state, adding that the level of compliance achieved in routine immunizations in the state was largely because of their direct involvement in the project.

Ganduje said that the experiences garnered in the course of the 3-way partnership would further the implementation of their new projects in the area of child healthcare as well as in the overall development of the health sector of the northern state.