The Minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, has said the federal government is set to release N6.5 billion to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC to combat the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The Finance Minister who revealed this during a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly in Abuja on Wednesday said, the fund is an intervention to assist in the fight against the spread of the COVID-19 in the country.
It was gathered that, the Minister, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and other executive officials met with the lawmakers to review the planned budget as well as the effect of the pandemic and recent oil price crash on the nation’s economy.
During her presentation, the minister said "the federal government had made provisions for health sector interventions by introducing import duty waivers for essential input for pharmaceutical firms; tax waivers on new equipment; and deferment of tax to increase production".
She further said "the federal government would be releasing N6.5 billion in two tranches (N1.5 billion and N5 billion) to the NCDC as intervention to assist in the fight against the spread of the COVID-19 disease in Nigeria".
She also informed the lawmakers that Nigeria had received a grant of $18.2 million from Japan for strengthening seven NCDC centres across the country, adding that N1 billion would be released by government to pharmaceutical firms in the country.
It would be recalled that, Nigeria has a total of 51 confirmed cases, with Lagos State recording the highest number of confirmed cases in the country with 32 cases, followed by Abuja with 10 cases, Ogun State three, and Ekiti, Oyo Edo, Bauchi Osun and Rivers have one case each.
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