.Assures Health Insurance Scheme will boost human capital devt
Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has called on donor agencies for continued support of its development initiatives.
He also assured them that the government was committed to ensuring high impact of donors’ assistance for all stakeholders.
The governor made the appeal at the First Quarterly Review of Donor Agencies’ projects in the state held at the Banquet Hall, Government House in Benin city, the Edo State capital.
Obaseki, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Osarodion Ogie, said that in the light of Nigeria’s transition from low to middle income status, the country risked losing access to certain funding for development.
He said this calls for more creative approaches to addressing developmental challenges, especially in healthcare and education, noting that the state government is adopting the Edo State Health Insurance Scheme to ensure that accessible and affordable healthcare does not elude the people.
According to him, “Edo State is not sleeping on its oars in the face of such dire situation. Hence, we are adopting a special Edo State Health Insurance Scheme.
“As donor support is shrinking, we must put on our thinking caps to begin to look at other sources of funds to assist us with our developmental projects. It is on this note that we request our donor partners to keep granting Edo State the understanding it truly deserves because of our unalloyed commitment of ensuring that every of your effort crystalizes into high-yielding gains for all stakeholders.”
He explained that the meeting was also to acquaint local government executives with the different donor funded projects in their domain so that they do not only have inventory of the projects, but also to ensure monitoring and maintenance.
In her remarks, Commissioner for Budget, Maryam Abubakar, said that the state government organised the meeting to review performance and ascertain intervention and impact of donor agencies’ projects.
She added that the state government places emphasis on the deepening of development by donor agencies, especially in line with its developmental plan, captured in thematic areas in the State’s Strategic Plan 2010-2020.