From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
Kebbi State Government has denied a story that made the rounds, which purported that it had spent N3.03 billion on the Primary Health Care in the year 2021.
Reacting to the story, the state government, through the Executive Secretary of Kebbi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Abubakar A. Kaoje, stated made the clearance in a statement made available to newsmen in Birnin Kebbi.
In a statement, Kaoje debunked the online report credited to MAWA Foundation, in which the picture of a dilapidated primary healthcare facility at Unguwan Madi village in Jega Local Government Area, was used to question the justification for what the writer alleged was spent on rural health by the Kebbi State government in 2021.
The statement read in part: “In view of the distortion of facts in that report with a tendency to misinform 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 misrepresentation of facts.
“The primary healthcare facility showcased in the report is a third-grade facility (health post) of which Kebbi State has over 500, in addition to the first-grade PHCs and second- grade (health clinic) healthcare facilities. And the facility is actually in Jega, not Maiyama LGA as alleged in the report.”
Kaoje explained that due to the neglect, which the PHC system in the country had suffered over the years, infrastructural decay had been one of the major challenges of the PHCs not just in Kebbi State, but in the entire country.