By Auwal Mohammed
Gombe (Nigeria) — Gombe State Commissioner for Finance, in northeast Nigeria, Muhammadu Hassan, has asked Ministries, Departments and Agencies to summit their intervention project activities reports, as a condition for getting more funding.
Hassan stated this when the State Committee on Food and Nutrition led by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Economic Planning, Stephen Ayuba, who paid him an advocacy visit on behalf of the Committee’s Chairman and Commissioner for the Ministry, Danladi Mohammed Pantami.
Hassan expressed displeasure over what he described as a devastating indices of 41 per cent stunting rate of children in the State.
He stated that the report had annoyed him, as well as the Governor, hence the need for action to be taken immediately.
According to him, “I’m just knowing this for the first time and nobody in his right state of mind would allow such kind of thing to happen, not to us in Gombe. No father would want such in his family”.
He called for a change of attitude in addressing the situation saying, “41 per cent stunted children? It means 41 per cent lost and it could be more, because of inter-generational impact. We are their leaders today; we are supposed to prevent that”.
Faulting the NGO’s and MDA’s, the Commissioner said “I assure you that you see no action because you people have not done your job. If at a time I give you a budget of N120 million, I must have believed that the project is worth N120 million. If you see me reduce that to N30 million, then you have to be convinced that I have not seen results, I have not seen the benefits of retaining N120 million”.
“And if it is after six years that I get to know that we have stunting children in Gombe, then we should do something about it and you shouldn’t blame me but yourselves, those of you doing advocacy,” the Commissioner frowned.
He said on all projects requiring counterpart funding in the State, it is always a tug of war because of scarce resources at the disposal of government at the face of many competing demands.
“That is why your attention will go to what you see and touch on a daily basis, but most of those projects that do not receive Government support in terms of counterpart funding is simply because we do not see the report, we don’t see the benefit of the funding we see in the past, in terms of its benefit to the people we are serving ”.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary Stephen Ayuba commended the State Government’s effort in addressing malnutrition in the State though statistics of the State still show 41 per cent stunting rate, which is considered very high.
The advocacy, he explained, is for the functioning of the Gombe State Committee to come up with a clearly defined plan that focuses on most effective interventions especially at the LGA and community level for improved women’s nutrition, improved access to micro-nutrients supplements, improve the quality of the food through micronutrients fortifications and change behaviours of family members at critical points during the pregnancy until the child’s second birth day.