Minister of Health and Social Welfare. Prof Ali Pate, during the Ministry’s 2026 budget defence before the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Service, revealed that only N36 million out of the N218 billion appropriated for its 2025 capital expenditure was released.
He told lawmakers that the implementation of the 2025 capital budget was stalled by circumstances beyond the Ministry’s control, adding that the meagre release made it practically impossible for the Ministry to execute its capital projects for the year.
Pate explained that though the entire personnel allocation for 2025 was released and fully utilised, the capital component suffered severe funding constraints, largely due to the bottom-up cash planning system operated by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
The minister stated that the situation was compounded by delays in the release of Nigeria’s counterpart contributions, which prevented the Ministry from accessing certain counterpart and donor-supported funds tied to capital projects.
The Budget Office of the Federation recently released data showing how the country has grossly underfunded the health sector in the past 10 years and how it has consistently short-changed the future of its citizens through abysmal release of budgetary allocations despite having one of the worst health indices in the world and constant disease outbreaks.
Nigeria’s allocations to the health sector over the years have been below the recommended 15 per cent benchmark stipulated in the 2001 Abuja Declaration, which Nigeria was a signatory to.
Titled “10-year capital funding gap in Nigeria’s health sector“, the data showed a wide gap between capital appropriation and the actual release/utilisation from 2016 to 2025. According to the data out of about N218.0 bn appropriated for capital projects in 2025, only N36 million was actually released to the sector.
It further showed that in 2024, 2024 the sum of N434.8bn was allocated to the sector, while only N65.4bn, representing 15.06% of the allocation, was released.
Further breakdown of the budgetary allocations and releases revealed that in 2023, N134 billion was allocated, with N40.4bn released representing 30%, 2022 had N134.7bn allocated, and N87.3bn released 45%, 2021 had N194bn allocated, with N93.8bn representing 70% of the total capital budget released. 2020, N46.5bn with N23.2bn released.
In addition, N46.5bn was allocated for capital projects in 2019, while N25.5bn was released. 2018 had N71.1bn with N42.6bn release, N51.3bn in 2017 with N33.3bn released and N28.7bn in 2016 with only N15.2bn released.
