NHIA, Senate Push Health Taxes to Fund Healthcare, Fight Diseases

The National Health Insurance Authority and the Senate have called for stronger health tax reforms to improve healthcare financing, expand insurance coverage and reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases in Nigeria.

The call was made on Wednesday at a national stakeholder workshop in Abuja focused on using health taxes to support sustainable health financing and prevent diseases.

The NHIA Director-General, Dr Kelechi Ohiri, said health tax reform required cooperation among government agencies, lawmakers, the private sector, civil society organisations, the media and other stakeholders.

He said Nigeria was facing the combined challenge of infectious diseases and maternal health concerns, while also experiencing a growing burden of non-communicable diseases associated with the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Ohiri said predictable domestic financing was necessary to strengthen the health system and improve access to essential healthcare services.

According to him, health taxes could serve two purposes by discouraging the consumption of harmful products and generating additional domestic resources for healthcare.

He disclosed that the Senate had passed the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Bill sponsored by the Senate Committee on Health and that the legislation was awaiting concurrence by the House of Representatives.

The proposed reforms seek to strengthen Nigeria’s existing sugar-sweetened beverage tax framework and direct part of the revenue towards health promotion, disease prevention and primary healthcare.

Ohiri said the challenge now was to ensure that the proposed reforms were effectively implemented through appropriate legal, fiscal and administrative arrangements.

He also stressed the importance of transparency and accountability in the collection and use of health tax revenue, saying Nigerians should be able to see measurable health benefits from the funds generated.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ipalibo Banigo, said health taxes should not be viewed only as a means of generating government revenue.

She described them as public health measures that could discourage the consumption of products linked to diseases while supporting health interventions.

Banigo called for clear mechanisms to determine how the revenue would be allocated and monitored, particularly to ensure that vulnerable populations benefit.

The World Health Organisation also urged policymakers to consider Nigeria’s political and institutional realities when implementing health tax reforms.

Stakeholders said effective public communication would be important in explaining why the taxes were being introduced, the diseases they seek to address and how the resulting revenue would be used.

The workshop is expected to help develop practical strategies for linking health tax revenues with disease prevention, health promotion and expanded access to healthcare.