Bauchi State is still lagging behind in the fight against Severe Acute Malnutrition that is still consuming the lives of its children, as data available to WikkiTimes revealed that only a paltry five percent of its total budgetary allocation has been released to fight the monster.
In 2019, WikkiTimes had documented how the State government failed to release a single kobo to help procure Ready to Use Therapeutic Food that was necessary to help tame the scourge of malnutrition which continues to kill children in the State.
Although there is a relative improvement in 2020 compared to 2019 where zero naira was released, data analyzed by this medium suggests, the State government had only release Twenty Million Naira (N20, 000,000) out of the Four Hundred Million Naira (400,000,000) total allocation for malnutrition and N1,085,000 out of the N100,000,000 revised malnutrition budget. The two releases represent a paltry of five percent and one percent respectively.
Data from the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy, CISLAC, International Society for Media in Public Health, ISMPH, and a consortium of other partners has revealed.
The data indicates that despite an increase in the number of malnourished children, the government’s commitment to release funds for the fight against the menace is considerably low.
Barely three months to the end of 2020, only One Million and Eighty-Five Thousand Naira (N1,085,000) which represents 1.085% out of the revised One Hundred Million Naira (N100,000,000) allocated to confront malnutrition in the State was released.
WikkiTimes also recalled that a review of activities of government agencies in Bauchi and Gombe states in 2018 and 2019 has shown that the two states have not released funds as their counterpart contribution for the implementation of Community Management of Acute Malnutrition programme.
The report at the time indicated that Bauchi state government approved N103 million while Gombe granted approval for N248 million to maintain and scale up the CMAM sites in different communities, but the two states could not release a single kobo as at November 30th , 2018 and December 19th, 2019 respectively.
Bauchi State still operates only 21 CMAM centres across the 20 LGAs of the State, making access difficult for caregivers of malnourished children.
Discussions at a recent one-day nutrition stakeholders’ meeting organized by the Aisha Buhari Foundation, Future Assured which took place at Hazibal Suits revealed that Bauchi State remains the worst hit by malnutrition in the entire North East region of Nigeria with 45.6 percent stunting (impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation).
The discussions posit that there is still little improvement with regards to disbursement of funds and coordinated efforts by the State government to address the threats posed by malnutrition.
Participants at the stakeholders’ meeting argued that, inadequate knowledge on complementary foods, lack of knowledge and skills to prepare complementary foods by caregivers and inadequate knowledge of early initiation of breastfeeding after birth and lack of sustained efforts by local governments in Bauchi State to own the fight against malnutrition were some of the stumbling blocks to ending its spread.
The stakeholders noted that in addition to insignificant budgetary allocation, poor budget releases in the health care sector has become a norm in Bauchi State.
Checks by WikkiTimes revealed that the poor budget releases which culminated into out of stock of the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) being experienced in some local governments in the state had an adverse effect on children’s healing process from the dungeon of the killer disease.
This medium learnt that many children who were admitted for treatment could not get the commodity delivered to them, an omen that poses existential threats to their survival.
For instance, about 21 children have been officially reported killed in Bauchi, Darazo, Kirfi, Gamawa, Katagum, Warji, Tafawa Balewa and Itas Gidau LGAs from January to August as a result of lack of supply of the RUTF.
Experts believe the death of the malnourished children may not be unconnected with the paltry and often delayed budget releases which are critical to the purchase and distribution of the commodity to patients in need.
Responding to these concerns, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, the Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency attributed the poor releases to shortfalls in revenue occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Rilwanu said, the State “Due to Covid-19 all budgetary releases were low not only nutrition, but all health budgets.”
He said the agency just received the revised 2019 budget; “the budget allocation was increased from14 percent to 17percent, we are now going to be writing memos to the government for all our health budget releases”, he added.
This report; third in the series was published with support from the International Society of Media in Public Health, ISMPH.
