Kano State One-Health MDAs, CSOs, LISDEL collaborate to review Health Security Expenditure
By Mustapha Salisu
A 1-day stakeholders workshop has been organized by the Legislative Initiative For Sustainable Development (LISDEL) in collaboration with the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) as part of their Prevent Epidemics Project.
The workshop, which is hosted on a quarterly basis, aims at reviewing the performance of the government’s spending on epidemic preparedness, health sector financing, and other health security-related ministries in Kano State.
Addressing the need for prompt releases of Epidemic Preparedness and Response (EPR) funds, LISDEL’s State Coordinator, Muhammad Shuaib, in his address, disclosed that the workshop aims to develop innovative strategies to further advocate for the approvals and releases of EPR allocated funds in Kano State.
“The need for the prompt releases of EPR funds is paramount to having a basket of resources to respond to and combat epidemic outbreaks like Diphtheria and other diseases,” Shuaib stated.
He revealed that after engagement with Ministry of Health, there have been two releases of the N400 million EPR funds to the tune of over N62 million.
Speaking earlier, a representative of the Kano Open Government Partnership (OGP), Dr. Abdulsalam Muhammad Kani, commended Kano State’s standing order on the allocation of N3 million monthly for EPR activities.
However, he lamented the serious challenges being faced in releasing the funds to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) concerned.
Dr. Kani explained that the government has blamed MDAs for not submitting memos on time requesting the release of EPR funds, thus contributing to the delay in the releases.
“That’s why as CSOs, we are going for an Advocacy visit to engage members of the Kano state House of Assembly specifically House Committee on Budget and Finance as well as Commissioner of Health in order to map out ways for timely release of the EPR funds,” Dr. Kani revealed.
The State Diseases Surveillance Notification Officer (DSNO), Sulaiman Iliyasu, provided an update on the current state of diseases outbreak in Kano, specifically Diphtheria. He noted that the state is in response mode with a case fatality rate of around 4.2%.
While lamenting how over 600 deaths have been recorded as a result of the Diphtheria outbreak in just a year, he disclosed that the figures are declining due to the dedicated work of the EPR committee and the implementation of the Incident Management System (IMS) in the state.
Other highlights of the workshop included paper presentations by representatives from the Ministry of Planning and Budget, including Yakubu Sabiu, Director of Budget, and Abbas Iliyasu Karaye, Director of M&E.
Prime Time News correspondent reports that stakeholders unanimously urged for increased awareness on the importance of vaccination against Diphtheria, as well as engaging the government on the need to quickly release funds for EPR activities.
