From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
Kebbi State Government has denied that it’s has expended N3.03 billion budget on the Primary Health Care in the year 2021.
The State Government, through the Executive Secretary of Kebbi state Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Abubakar A. Kaoje, made the clearance in a statement made available to newsmen in Birnin Kebbi.
  According to him, “the attention of the Kebbi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency has been drawn to an on line report from an NGO, the MAWA foundation in which the picture of a dilapidated Primary Healthcare facility at Unguwan Madi village in Jega LGA was used to question the justification for what the writer alleged was spent on rural health by the Government of Kebbi State in 2021.
  ” In view of the distortion of facts in that report with a tendency to mis-inform the public and create a bad impression of the good Government of Kebbi State, the Agency is compelled to clear the air on the matter.
  “The truth of the matter is that in 2021, the Kebbi State government had a budgetary provision of N3,065,379,144.00 for  PHC out of which N672,968,488.93 was expended for the year. The figure of N3.03 billion quoted in the MAWA report as the State’s expenditure on PHC in 2021 is therefore, a gross mis-presentation of facts.
“The Primary Healthcare facility showcased in the report is a 3rd grade facility (Health post) of which Kebbi State has over 500 in addition to the 1st grade (PHC) and 2nd grade (Health clinic) healthcare facilities. And the facility is actually in Jega, not Maiyama LGA as alleged in the report”, he said.
  Kaoje explained that, due to the neglect which the PHC system in the country has suffered over the years, infrastructural decay was one of the major challenges of the PHC not just in Kebbi but the entire Country.
   ” It is in realization of this fact that the NPHCDA identified PHC revitalization as one of the pillars of its PHC reform agenda. In its effort towards addressing the PHC infrastructure gaps and in line with the Ward Health System  of the Country which aims at providing at least one functional PHC per political ward, the Kebbi State government in collaboration with Development partners has embarked on PHC revitalization which resulted in the renovation of 140 of the 225 ward focal PHCs in the State with an on-going  renovation of 36 more facilities.
  “In addition, the Kebbi State Government had approved the full implementation of PHC under one roof policy and provided regular funding for PHC activities in the 21 LGAs of the State .
 “These PHC reform strides of the State Government together with support from the Federal Government and our Development Partners have led to a remarkable improvement in the PHC indices of the State; for instance, Kebbi State scored 82% in the PHC under one roof scorecard-5 of the NPHCDA in 2020.
  ” Additionally, the immunization performance survey (LQAS) of the NPHCDA  improved from a mere 18% in 2018 to 81% in 2021 while the preliminary report of the Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey (MICS) of 2021 has reported for Kebbi, an immunization coverage of 55%  compared to  11% reported by the same survey in 2017.
  ” Similar improvements have also been observed for other service delivery indicators such as the ANC, facility delivery and family planning as shown by the steady rise in the DHIS data entry for these services”, he added.