Pecohub The paltry release of N36 million out of the N218 billion capital allocation for the health sector in the 2025 budget, amid equipment shortages in public hospitals and a surge in health worker migration, has raised concerns among stakeholders about the quality of service delivery to patients.
The N36m released so far represents approximately 0.015% of the N218bn allocated for the capital project in last year’s budget.
Experts in the health sector lament that such development continues to stall critical projects such as hospital upgrades, equipment procurement, and expansion of primary healthcare facilities.
This is coming at a time when Nigeria’s health indicators, like maternal and neonatal mortality, disease burden, and out-of-pocket spending, among others, are worrisome.
In 2025, several challenges fuelled by poor funding plagued the health sector, including numerous strikes by health workers that disrupted services nationwide, brain drain, and a global cut in health funding.
Nigeria has continued to fall short of the African Union’s Abuja Declaration target of allocating at least 15 per cent of national budgets to health, 24 years after the commitment was made in 2001.
At the 2026 budget defence before the House Committee on Healthcare Services, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, blamed his ministry’s inability to implement its 2025 capital budget on the gaps between allocated and released funds.
“Out of the N218bn appropriated to the health sector by the parliament for the execution of capital projects in the 2025 fiscal year, only N36m was released,” the minister told the committee.
As hospitals grapple with inadequate resources, experts who spoke exclusively with Pecohub stressed that underfunding capital projects could further weaken the already strained health system.
The Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos State branch, Dr Babajide Saheed, said the poor release of funds for capital projects may lead to avoidable setbacks in national health outcomes.
While describing the release of N32m as disappointing, Saheed said the action showed that the government does not prioritise the healthcare needs of Nigerians.
