By Stanley Nwanosike
Enugu – The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), on Tuesday, said it had focused on health institutions in order to check the growing decay in the health sector.
Mr Victor Muruako, the FRC Acting Chairman, made this disclosure to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu.
“Our emphasis on health institutions in our nationwide fiscal verification throughout the country is to get the administrators of these institutions to be up-and-doing.
”We want them to be alive to their monitoring and supervisory roles so that the money spent by the Federal Government on these institutions is accountable,’’ Muruako said.
NAN reports that the chairman, who led a team of FRC staff to South-East on intensive fiscal verification for 2015/2016 fiscal year, visited the National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu and the Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy, Enugu.
The team on Tuesday continued the tour to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku/Ozalla and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi (NUATH).
Muruako said that the institutions administrators and management team would be accountable and liable to government expenditure.
“There is the need to assist them to come and deliver critical public service to the people as well as ensure that projects meant for the good of Nigerians are delivered in record time.
“The issue of public finance and accountability has got to another level; where the administrators must know how to go about it and ensure that there is record of account.
“However, the government need to assist these institutions, even as the FRC looks into their books and embark on physical inspection to ensure that the money released by the Federal Government reflects what is on ground.
“It is also necessary for the federal lawmakers to look at home and ensure that the federal institutions in their domains deliver quality services to their people,’’ he said.
According to him, health is wealth and one of the most critical sectors the Federal Government is focusing to deliver service to Nigerians irrespective of their locations in the country.
On the radiology block at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Enugu, which is 98 per cent completed, Muruako expressed sadness that the only MRI centre had not taken off after six years of construction.
“It is not a good development that one cannot do an MRI test in a big national hospital like this; even where the building is near completion,’’ the chairman said. (NAN)