Health ministry budget too small, denies quality health to public-Bunge Committee

Dodoma. Only 57 per cent of the proposed budget of Sh1.07 trillion for health in last financial year was received by the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children by February this year.

The Social Services Parliamentary Committee said on Thursday April 19 that a large proportion of the budget received by the health docket was recurrent and for paying civil servants' salaries.

Of all the amount of money received by the Ministry, 49 per cent was spent on development projects, said the committee.

However, 19 per cent of the funds for development came from domestic sources while 71 per cent was contributed by donors.

The committee chairman, Peter Serukamba said: "It is the view of the committee that the health services provided to the people are inadequate because of poor funding."

"Despite the fact that the current financial year is almost coming to an end, we expect that the government will disburse all the funds that were passed by parliament as budgetary allocations for the Ministry," he added.