Health Minister Pate Links Tax Reforms, Fuel Subsidy Removal to Sustainable Healthcare Financing
Abuja — Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, has identified tax reforms and broader economic growth as critical to expanding domestic resources available for financing the country’s healthcare system, warning that Nigeria can no longer rely on the level of external donor support it has historically enjoyed.
Pate made the remarks on Monday in Abuja during a fireside chat at the Health Sector Reform Coalition (HSRC) and Nigeria Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Civil Society Organisations-Media Mid-Year Review of Nigeria’s Health Sector Reforms, an event that brought together government officials, civil society organisations, development partners, and journalists to assess progress on ongoing reforms in the health sector. The session was moderated by veteran journalist and broadcaster Moji Makanjuola.
According to Pate, Nigeria’s HIV response and immunisation programmes have long depended on substantial support from bilateral, multilateral, and charitable donor organisations, but shifting global priorities and mounting fiscal pressure on donor countries mean such external funding can no longer be assumed to continue at previous levels. He noted that wealthier nations are increasingly redirecting their own resources toward defence spending, climate change mitigation, and migration-related challenges, reducing the pool of funding historically available to countries like Nigeria. Against this backdrop, Pate argued that the path away from that dependency lies in federal, state, and local governments taking greater responsibility for investing domestic resources directly into healthcare for their citizens.
The minister linked this responsibility to the federal government’s broader economic reform agenda, citing the removal of the fuel subsidy and ongoing tax reforms as measures capable of creating additional fiscal space for social sectors such as health and education. He explained that resources previously absorbed by subsidy payments could instead be redirected toward these priority areas, provided that governments at both federal and state levels made a deliberate commitment to prioritise such investment. Pate further connected health financing to broader economic growth, explaining that a stronger economy would expand overall government revenue and, in turn, increase the resources available for public services generally.
Beyond fiscal policy changes alone, Pate stressed that tax reform should not be understood narrowly as simply introducing new taxes, but should also focus on improving the collection of revenue already legally owed to government at all levels. He cited Nigeria’s government revenue-to-GDP ratio, which he placed at approximately 7.8 percent, as significantly below the global average of around 15 percent, underscoring the scale of the country’s revenue mobilisation challenge relative to international peers.
The event also featured recognition for Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Ipalibo Banigo, who received the Health Champion 2026 award for her contributions to health-sector legislation, including her sponsorship of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund and a proposed Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax Bill. In her remarks, Banigo similarly called for increased investment in Nigeria’s health sector, noting that the country continues to fall short of its own stated commitments to healthcare financing.
As Nigeria continues pursuing its Universal Health Coverage ambitions, Monday’s review session underscored a growing consensus among health officials and lawmakers that sustainable progress will depend heavily on the success of the country’s broader fiscal and economic reform programme, rather than on health-sector interventions alone.
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