The Minister of National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma has said it would see to the allocation of more funds to the health sector so as to ensure improved child health and nutrition. The Minister who stated this during an advocacy meeting with the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFAH) maintained that he could not commit to raising the funds in the health sector to 15 percent as stipulated in the Abuja declaration.
He said, “You will understand that the country is going through difficult economic times and is trying to restructure the economy and ensures that it diversifies the revenue base”. Continuing, “It is through the infrastructure that we are able to get growth, improve agriculture, manufacturing, solid minerals and all the other things that could be used to grow the economy and when we get the resources it can be used to invest in health. We have to invest in infrastructure that would turn this economy around.”
While pledging the administration’s support towards vaccination to ensure that children are immunized, he said there was a strong commitment by the present administration to raising the funds appropriated to the sector. He urged PACFAH to liaise with the Ministry of health as the ministry would be at the fore front and most of the support would be given to the Ministry of health as the parent ministry, to determine the priority and how best to achieve the objectives of the administration.