The Federal Government has released over ₦192 billion to boost primary healthcare delivery across Nigeria since the launch of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) in 2019.
Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Muyi Aina, disclosed this in Abuja during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the recent National Health Financing Policy Dialogue.
The dialogue, themed “Reimagining the Future of Health Financing in Nigeria”, was organised by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and partners.
Aina said 8,309 facilities nationwide now receive quarterly allocations under the BHCPF, with payments recently scaled up from about ₦300,000 to between ₦600,000 and ₦800,000 depending on facility size and patient load.
He described the upgrade, tagged BHCPF 2.0, as a reform designed to cover real operational costs such as staff support, essential commodities, and infrastructure.
Despite rising allocations, Aina noted that the health sector still faces strain from inflation and currency fluctuations, with out-of-pocket spending dominating healthcare costs. Public sector funding, he said, accounts for only 14 percent of national health expenditure.
To close financing gaps, the government has mobilised ₦3.5 billion through mechanisms such as the BHCPF, Global Fund, Gavi, PEPFAR, and the Health Sector Renewal Initiative under a Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp).
Plans are also underway to roll out a nationwide direct funding mechanism to improve accountability by channeling payments for commodities and salaries directly into designated accounts.
Aina, however, raised concerns over accountability in vaccine management, revealing that 15–25 percent of non-campaign vaccines in Nigeria remain unaccounted for.
Discrepancies in vaccine utilisation across states, he said, suggest wastage, poor forecasting, or mismanagement, with some states reportedly consuming four times more vaccines than their coverage rates.
“We are now telling states to go down to the local government level, identify where the problems are and fix them,” Aina said.
He added that efficiency measures had helped cut projected vaccine procurement costs for the next five years from $1.5 billion to $1 billion.
According to him, the government remains committed to closing funding gaps through stronger federal, state, and local co-financing, while ensuring transparency and performance-based accountability in the health system.
