By Mohammed Abubakar, Dutse

The Jigawa State House of Assembly has restated its commitment to collaborate with the executive arm of government in the provision of quality and affordable health care services to the people of the state.

The development is coming just as the state government said it would commit over N 9.7 billion towards the revitalisation of more than 114 Primary Healthcare Centres spread across the 27 LGAs and 287 political wards across the state before the end of the first quarter of 2025.

Chairman of the House Committee on Health, Abdu Ila Muku, who made the pledge on Monday, during the committee briefing by top management of the ministry on the performance of the ministry of health in the 2024 budget in Dutse.

The delegation led by the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muhammad Abdullahi Kainuwa, included al the heads of the agencies under the ministry and some health institutions across the state.

During the interaction, the Jigawa Material Newborn Child Health (MNCH) Accountability Forum, (JiMAF), a non-governmental organisation committed to the protection of women and newborns in the state, presented its findings from the 2024 health sector budget performance and 2025 approved budgetary analysts for discussion.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, the lawmaker maintained that the the committees was satisfied with performance of the ministry in the healthcare delivery but stressed that the committee observed some gaps in the implementation of the last year’s budget, which could be rectified as the process of the implementation of the 2025 budget circle gets under way.

He described the interaction with the officials from the ministry as unique and routine, aimed at strengthening the existing cordial working relationship between the legislature and executive, especially coming as a fallout of the outcome of the findings from an independent organisation outside the government bureaucracy.

According to him, “You’re probably aware of the findings of JiMAF, we had fruitful discussion between the members of state house of assembly and stakeholders in the health sector. This is the first of its kind from the assembly discussing issues from private to make an independent analysis of the budget.

“They came with an objective analysis of the entire budgetary provisions, including approvals and releases as well as providing solutions to some of the identified challenges aimed at addressing the healthcare facilities across the state.”

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muhammad Abdullahi Kainuwa, who led the state government delegation to the interaction maintained that the state government was committed to revitalising at least 114 Primary Healthcare Centres ( PHCs) across the state to the time of N 9.7 billion before the end of first quarter of 2025.

According to him, “We had a fruitful discussion on the performance of the 2024 budget for the health sector and I must tell you that there were lessons learnt; there were issues that we needed to address in order to make the implementation of the 2025 better than that of last year’s.

“For instance, we addressed issues regarding the challenges of procurement, issues of planning and issues of inadequate data. But in the overall we want to ensure that our PHCs are functional 24/7, that is why contracts have been awarded for the revitalisation of more than 114 PHCs to the tune N 9.7 billion for the Q1 this year.”

Kainuwa, however, admitted that the 2024 budgetary performance in the health sector was affected by lack of payments for major contractors due to bureaucracy. “But we’ll that we improve on our bidding process; procurement process as well as trying to ensure that we offer training to all planning officers, monitoring and evaluation officers among others,” Kainuwa said.