Claim Fayemi spent N91bn on abandoned health facility untrue – Commissioner

The Ekiti State Government has described as untrue the allegation that the immediate past governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, expended N91bn on a primary healthcare facility that is now abandoned.

The Commissioner for Health, Br Oyebanji Filani, stated that the allegation “is outrageously false and intended to misinform the public.”

Filani, in a statement on Wednesday titled, ‘Press statement debunking the false claim on PHC facility in Ekiti State’, revealed that the alleged “amount was the total revised budget for the state in 2021.

“The facility is a community project carried out by a former local government chairman and is not under the administration of the Ekiti State Primary Healthcare Development Agency,” he said.

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Filani urged the public to disregard the allegation, saying, “In line with the PHC Under One Roof policy, the government of Ekiti State has established fully functional PHCs in all 177 wards in Ekiti State, thereby bringing healthcare closer to our communities.

“In 2021, the state government procured brand new life-saving medical equipment and distributed them across the PHC centres. This is in addition to staff redistribution and our NYSC plus programme, designed to increase the availability of health workers in our facilities.”

He said the state government had leveraged the Basic Health Care Provision Fund by purchasing an explicit package of services that enabled tens of thousands of pregnant women, under-five children and the elderly to access health services in the PHCs at no cost to them.

“To create awareness and drive demand for the services, signposts were erected in all 16 local government areas in the state to display the package of services rendered in these fully functional PHCs.

“In addition to the work done in PHC, the state government also invested significantly in renovating 12 high-burden general hospitals out of 22 in the state, equipped with modern facilities, to serve as referral centres to the PHCs.

“Our tertiary health facility was also not left behind, with the renovation of the eye and dental care centres and the establishment of a new intensive care unit.

“Beyond infrastructure, the impact of all these investments is evident in the state’s overall health performance and outcomes. Currently, Ekiti State has an immunisation coverage rate of 85 per cent – the highest coverage for routine immunisation in the South-West and fourth highest in Nigeria,” Filani said.