FG Moves to Accelerate Health Tax Reform

• May introduce alcohol, tobacco taxes

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has moved to accelerate health tax reform in Nigeria, describing it as critical to sustainable health financing and efforts to curb rising non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

At a National Stakeholder Co-creation Workshop on Realising Health Taxes for Sustainable Health Financing and Curbing NCDs, held in Abuja on Tuesday, NHIA Director-General, Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, said health tax reform could not be achieved by the health sector alone but through collaboration with other sectors.

Ohiri stated, “Health-tax reform is not the mandate of any single sector or ministry

“It has to involve the leadership of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning, the private sector, civil society, the media and all stakeholders.”

He said while Nigeria continued to grapple with infectious diseases and maternal mortality, it was also confronting the growing burden of NCDs associated with consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), tobacco, and alcohol, alongside an urgent need for predictable domestic financing.

“Health taxes offer a promising strategy for addressing both challenges,” he said, stating that they are both a powerful public-health intervention that saves lives by changing behaviour and a legitimate domestic resource mobilisation tool.

Ohiri said Nigeria was not starting from blank page, building on World Health Assembly resolutions and the federal government’s commitment to domestic resource mobilisation.

He disclosed that Senate had already passed the SSB Tax Bill, sponsored by Senate Committee on Health, and it was awaiting concurrence by House of Representatives.

Ohiri said the house committee chairman on health had committed to attend to the bill.

“The proposed reforms seek to strengthen the existing SSB tax framework and allocate a portion of resources directly to health promotion, disease prevention and primary healthcare,” he said.

He said the central question for stakeholders was what it will take to move viable reforms through policy, legal, fiscal and administrative systems into effective implementation.

He said it included identifying needed political leadership, institutional capacities, and public financial management mechanisms to ensure transparency, and improve revenue and health outcomes.

Citing Philippines, which used health taxes to expand health insurance coverage, Ohiri said Nigeria could target new revenues to reduce the burden and expand coverage, while learning from other countries.

“Healthcare should be accessible, but it is not cheap. We need to build a workable roadmap so that this does not remain theoretical,” he said.

In a goodwill message, Chairman Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ipalibo Harry Banigo, said health taxes should not be seen as solely for revenue, but for reducing consumption of harmful products.

World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Pavel Ursu, said evidence alone would not be sufficient to deliver health tax reforms.

Ursu said evidence had to be translated into policy through an understanding of Nigeria’s political economy, institutions, and the stakeholders capable of influencing implementation.

He said health tax reforms required the involvement of the Ministries of Health and Finance, lawmakers, civil society, media, non-governmental organisations, and other influential stakeholders.

According to him, research should be demand-driven and designed to inform policy dialogue while responding to local realities.

Executive Director, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Dr. Kumanan Rasanathan, said the alliance supported work in 16 countries and hoped the workshop will help change culture beyond strategies.

Chief Moji Makanjuola, Chief Executive Officer, International Society for Media in Public Health and Chair, Nigeria Universal Health Coverage (UHC), stressed the importance of communicating the purpose of health taxes to citizens.

Makanjuola said Nigerians needed clear answers to questions about why the taxes were being introduced, what health problems they were intended to address, how the revenue would be used, and how implementation would work.

The workshop, implemented with DGI Consult, Health Strategy and Delivery Foundation, WHO, and other partners, aims to move from assessment to co-creation and action with short and long-term responsibilities assigned.