A civil society organisation- War Against Injustice (WAI), has written to the the Honourable Speaker of Kano State House of Assembly, over the fragrant disregard for Freedom of Information Act by the executive Secretary of Kano State Health Trust Fund.
The group in their petition made available to JOURNALIST101 said the Executive Secretary of the Trust Fund has refunded to make available to them, information on the amount of money generated by the agency and how its spent in contravention of the FoI act.
The Executive Director of WAI, Comr. Umar Ibrahim Umar who signed the petition said their investigation, revealed that “there is no Free Maternal Healthcare Program in the State,” contrary to what the Health Trust Fund said.
Umar called on the Speaker to investigate the dealings in the organization in the interest of justice.
The petition reads:
We are hereby writing to lodge our complaint before this honourable house against above mentioned person over the denial of our right to access the public information requested under Freedom of Information Act, 2011.
Sir, you will recall that, in 2017 this honourable house has passed the Kano State Health Trust Fund Bill into law with aim to reduce or address maternal and child mortality due to the frequent occurrence of it.
The above fund charged with the responsibility to collect 5% from internally generated revenue (IGR) and 1% from statutory federation of the local government councils as enshrined in section 5 (1) and (2) of Kano State Health Trust Fund Law 2017.
On 17-8-2021, we wrote an application for information and sent it to to his office, requesting him to provide us the total sum of money collected from internally generated revenue (IGR), 1% from statutory federation allocation of the local government councils, the total sum of 5% shared to the committee on maternal health care for free maternal health care program and total sum of 10% shared for malaria and nutrition interventions as enshrined in section 12 (e) and (d) of the said law (copy attached). Neither response nor anything was released to us.
On 29-12-2022 we sent him a follow-up letter to remind him to release the above mentioned information as we requested earlier. Neither response nor anything was released (copy attached) to us.
This is contrary to the right given by the aforementioned law and against the spirit and letters of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) by virtue of section 14 (2) (c).
In our investigation, we found that, there is no Free Maternal Healthcare Program in the State.
Nigeria has been mentioned by the World Health Organization as having one of the highest maternal, Neo-natal and Child mortality rates in the World and there is consensus that the rate is very high in Kano State.
It is imperative to State that the right to Comprehensive and quality healthcare, including Maternal and Child healthcare is a universal right that is guaranteed for Nigerians by the provisions of section 17 (3) (d) and (h) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
Sir, for the interest of justice, we urge you to exercise oversight function of this honourable house and your good office to investigate the above matter and induce him to release us the requested information as required by the Act.
