The Federal Government has made provision in the 2021 budget to pay for the vaccination of around 103 million Nigerians or 50 percent of the population against COVID-19.
Ben Akabueze, the director-general of the Budget Office of the Federation, made this disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, during the budget 2021 budget breakdown.
According to Akabueze: “There is a global alliance to support economically weak nations with vaccines, our understanding of the current plan is that we will be getting vaccines donations to cover up to 20 percent of our population but then the global standards say that to achieve herd immunity you have to vaccine at least 70 percent of the population and so there is a 50 percent of the population that we may be required to pay for their own vaccination.”
Already, there is an “inter-ministerial committee looking at this matters and the assurance is that government will do whatever is needful to keep the citizens and economy safe even if it means coming back with a supplementary budget”.
The National Assembly reviewed the 2021 budget upward by N500 billion to accommodate the purchase and distribution of vaccines against coronavirus.
Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, prayed that the situation should not arise to warrant another lockdown.
According to her: “We hope we never have to lock down the economy as we did before because the impact is very high on the economy but then if the health challenge becomes so large, and the government has no option then that step might be taken.
“Right now what we are doing as a government, is to reinforce the measures that need to be taken by the government, by companies, by individuals to mitigate the impact from the COVID to reduce the expansion and also obviates the health challenges.
“Currently the vaccines are now out and they are available and Nigeria is in the process of deciding and beginning to acquire its own vaccine so we do hope that a lockdown the type we’ve seen in 2020 will not happen.”
Source: The Nation
