In his determination to re-position the health sector in the state, Governor Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya has approved and released sum of N605 million to scale up Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP) that will cover all the six Local government areas of the State.
The approved and released of the money according to the governor was to enable the Agency scale up the implementation of the Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP) in the five remaining local government areas of the State, namely: Kaltungo, Nafada, Shongom, Funakaye and Kwami.
He said that the project is a World Bank project currently being implemented in eight States of Nigeria while in Gombe State, the project is currently being implemented in six out of the Eleven Local Government Areas, including Akko, Billiri, Gombe, Yamaltu Deba, Balanga and Dukku, where 85 Primary Healthcare centres have been successfully revitalized.
“By the design of the project, Gombe State is expected to cover only 50 percent of the state with the World Bank credit earmarked for the project.The approval of this counterpart funding for NSHIP is an unprecedented move, whereby Gombe state is using domestic resources to fund a Performance Based Financing (PBF) programme”, the Governor said.
Governor Inuwa Yahaya who had earlier during a meeting with a World Bank delegation jointly led by task team leaders, Mr. Gyuri Fritche and Fatima Abubakar Mustapha said that the pushed for the scaling up of the project to the remaining five local government areas was aimed at making sure that the entire populace enjoy the benefit therein.
“We agreed to escalade it on a 40 percent / 60 percent basis, with Gombe providing N605 Million while the World Bank provided the balance of 1.5 Million Dollars from the International Development Association (IDA), resources for the NSHIP project allocated to the state”, Governor Yahaya explained.
Also, the Nigeria PBF programme started in 2011 with three States of Adamawa, Ondo and Nasarawa and It was scaled up in 2015 to all the remaining five States of North East following the Boko Haram Insurgency in the Region. By the design of the additional Financing for the project, the states of Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba are to cover only 50 percent of their LGA’s while Borno and Yobe States are to cover 100 percent of their’s.
The successful implementation of the project in the focal states has demonstated that the PBF reforms produced an encouraging results, thereby becoming the preferred approach to achieve Universal Health Coverage in the State.
