By Aminu Abubakar

A SolaceBase review of budget performance documents has shown that select Northwestern states across the country have improved their expenditure for primary healthcare in their respective states.

Review shows that the Jigawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency budgeted the sum of N7.2 billion for its primary healthcare capital needs in 2024, however between January and September of the year, it spent N2.8 billion.

This represents 38.8% of the total amount budgeted for capital needs of the primary health Centre of the state.

Jigawa state has 280 primary healthcare centres based on data provided on its website.

This would mean that the state spent N10 million on each of its primary health Centre capital needs between January and September 2024.

This is an improvement from the N1 billion spent between January and September 2023.

The state budgeted N4.4 billion for capital expenditure of its primary healthcare ministry in 2023. This expenditure is 22.7% of the state planned capital expenditure for health ministry in the 2023 fiscal year

In 2022, it budgeted N2.1 billion but spent N254.8 million between January and September of the year. This represents 12% of the total budget for the primary healthcare agency capital expenditure for the whole of the 2022 fiscal year.

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The data reviewed shows that Jigawa State has increased its allocation to the primary health sector between 2022 and 2024, however at no point did the state spend 50% of its capital expenditure for primary healthcare within nine months.

Katsina state budgeted N3.040 billion in 2024 for its primary healthcare development agency capital expenditure; it spent N1 billion actually between January and September of the year.

SolaceBase reports that this represents 33.3% of the actual budget for the capital expenditure of primary health care.

This represents an increment from the N15 million it spent between January and September in 2023, out of a budget of N2.6 billion. This would mean that 0.56% of the total budget was spent within the nine-month period.

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For Zamfara state, the total expenditure budget  for the agency stood at N336.5 million, however only N79.1 million was spent between January and September of the 2024 fiscal year. This represents 23.5% of the budgeted amount for the 2024 fiscal year per details on the state budget performance document.

This expenditure is a fall from the N88.7 million spent in the first nine months of 2023 from a budgeted amount of N1.889 billion. Only 4.69% was spent of the amount budgeted for the 2023 fiscal year.

Worrying Commitment to Primary Healthcare Amid Poor Data on Mortality Rate

States sampled in this report have a worrying index in this report and have worrying data when it comes to mortality rate.

According to a report in the States of States, data of the Kingmakers, the infant mortality rate of Katsina stands at sixty-six per 1000 live births.

Zamfara is also put at sixty-six per 1000 live births, and Jigawa is highest at 81 per 1000 live births.

This comes amid concerns on the state of primary healthcare across states in the Northwestern region of the country.

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For instance, in Zamfara asides poor expenditure, access to primary healthcare is put at risk due to insecurity.

Data shows that while states are committing to big figures in terms of primary healthcare infrastructure needs, actual expenditures remain on a low level, especially given the touted needs of PHC.

Primary Healthcare Centres are also usually relied on by rural area dwellers most of whom lack access to urban areas where hospitals are domiciled.