The Plateau State Aids Control Agency, PLACA, Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunity Commission and other MDAs have defended their 2025 fiscal year budget proposal before the State Assembly.
PLACA defended their budget before House Committee on Health, headed by Nanbol Listick while Gender and Equal Opportunity Commission defended their own before before the House Committee on Women Affairs, headed by Eli Ankala.
Speaking to House of Assembly press crew shortly after defending her agency’s budget, the Executive Director of PLACA, Mrs. Esther Turaki informed the press that the engagement with honourable members was fruitful because they are all working for the interest of Plateau State citizens.
Mrs. Turaki said the focus of PLACA in 2025 is prevention of new infections, especially prevention of HIV and AIDS transmission from mother to child, which she said the agency will do more of sensitization and capacity building of service providers in the state as well as Local Government levels.
Barrister Olivia Dazem, the Chairperson, Gender and Equal Opportunity Commission, said being a new commission they intend to improve on their activities in 2025, adding that they discovered that parents sometimes give their children out to traffickers ignorantly.
She said they also proposed a budget that will help them prosecute violators and fight Gender Based Violence in the state. Noted that the governor has approved for them to go down across grassroots in all the 17 local governments to create awareness among people on gender violence and trafficking from the state.
On his part, the Chief Medical Director of Plateau State Specialist Hospital, Prof. Christopher Yilgwan said they intend to leverage on the current progress they are making in the hospital to make it a medical tourist destination even for high class personalities within and outside the country to access care.
He added that the hospital is a work in progress and the Plateau State listening governor has given them an enabling environment to operate, as they are expecting more state of the art equipments in few weeks to come.
Other MDAs that defended their budget were the Ministry of Women Affairs, Disability Right Commission, under the Standing Committee on Women Affairs, headed by Eli Ankala, Road Maintenance Agency under the Standing Committee on Works and Transport, headed by Dickson Chollom, Plateau State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, PLASCHEMA and Plateau State Hospital Management Board, under the Standing Committee on Health, headed by Nanbol Listick.
The various Committees while scrutinizing the MDAs budget, grilled the management for clarity and better understanding, as they also advised them on areas of priorities and expunged from the budget proposal where they felt should not be a priority and review upward some areas of priorities for the MDAs.