AMINA HUSSAINI, Abuja
The federal government assured of giving priority to the healthcare sector noting that it will be risky to experience another pandemic if the country fails to take advantage of the opportunities presented by COVID-19.
It is in pursuit of this that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued N1 billion loan to May & Baker under the intervention measures to lessen the impact of the pandemic and build a stronger healthcare sector.
Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) who gave the government’s direction in the healthcare sector spoke while inaugurating the Board of Experts (BoE) of the Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme (HSRDIS) in Abuja on Monday.
According to Mustapha, “if we lose the sense of the moment, we will be confronted with another pandemic and we will find ourselves starting all over again. If we had built on the experiences of Ebola and other epidemics that we have dealt with in the past, probably today we wouldn’t have started with about two molecular laboratories for the testing of COVID-19.”
He noted that “if you travel the shores of this country, you will find out that we have over 10,000 public primary healthcare centers scattered inwards and villages across the country, ill-equipped, ineffective, and not being put into use but we keep building them.”
He appealed to members of the Board of Experts to also “look at governance structures in the healthcare sector apart from your primary responsibilities.
COVID-19 the SGF said, “has exposed the weaknesses in our health system, in our governance system, in our security infrastructure, in our inclusiveness and creating social safety nets for our people.”
This intervention by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) he said “will set us on the part of recovering our health care system in Nigeria. If we did not have the opportunity of reconsidering the reconstruction, of our health infrastructure in this country this is a golden opportunity that has availed itself.”
He cautioned that “it will be the greatest disappointment of our time and of our generation if we do not seize the opportunity of the moment to redress all the deficiencies of the defects that we’ve had in our health and other infrastructure in this country.”
Mustapha added that “this particular time is an eye-opener and it has revealed the depth of the weaknesses in the system. I have seen how the levels of government have abdicated their responsibilities when it comes to dealing with educational or health matters.”
In the last three months, he said he has come to realize that there has been a total abdication of responsibility in terms of management, funding, in terms of control in terms of direction and building capacity.
He told members of the BoE that the issue of governance has become very important “so that we don’t have people in government abdicating their responsibilities and walking away with it.”
Speaking earlier, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said that “currently, 20 projects valued at ₦26.278 Billion have been funded under the ₦100billion credit support intervention for the healthcare industry.”
He stated that “some of the firms that have been able to obtain funding include hospitals, research centers, and pharmaceutical industries.”
However, the Director, Development Finance of the CBN Mr. Philip Yila Yusuf clarified that the CBN has received over 27 proposals from researchers requesting for ₦67billion grant.
The grant is to enable them to develop vaccines, advanced drugs or manufacturing of different types of products that will enable Nigeria to solve different kinds of health care challenges plaguing the country.
According to Yusuf, “what we have inaugurated today is the Healthcare Research and Development Interventions Scheme. This is a grant to researchers, Institutions that want to embark on research either to develop vaccines or herbal medicines or drugs that could address not only COVID-19 but other infectious diseases that affect our people.”
Yusuf explained that “this grant is different from the hundred billion naira health care sector intervention that is for manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, hospitals who want to make money from the Deposit Money Banks to either expand or revitalize the lines that they have.”
Analysis of May & Baker’s quarterly report shows the pharmaceutical firm received an intervention fund of N1 billion from the CBN in the first quarter of 2020. The amount came in timely as it was just before the COVID-19 pandemic broke across the country causing an economic shut down that has negatively impacted industries across the country. The fund increased the company’s net loans from N482.5 million in December 2019 to N1.7 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The intervention fund came in handy for the firm which had just listed an additional 745,234,886 ordinary shares by way of a Rights Issue taking the total issued and fully paid-up shares of the company from 980,000,000 to 1,725,234,886. The ordinary shares were of 50 kobo each at N2.50 per share and offered on the basis of one new ordinary share for every one ordinary share held as of September 4, 2018. The company had, however, used the capital raised from the Rights Issue to repay previous debts.
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