Ministry of Health debunks N15,000 cash transfer instant relief report

Nigeria’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, headed by Prof. Ali Pate, has disproved the report of an ongoing N15,000 palliative distribution to Nigerian citizens.

The debunking was done in a statement issued on Saturday, April 27, and signed by the ministry’s Director of Information, Patricia Deworitshe.

Deworitshe said an online media outlet “falsely claimed in its report that the ministry was in the process of distributing an instant relief fund of N15,000 to Nigerians.”

Premium Times, however, could not confirm the ministry’s claim.

The statement urged the public to disregard the report as it is not currently engaged in disbursing funds of any amount to the public.

It reads in part: “The attention of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has been drawn to an online publication in the media that the Ministry is giving out Fifteen thousand Naira, (N15,000) INSTANT RELIEF FUNDS, to the public.

“The general public is to be informed that the ministry is not in the process of giving such money.

“The public is to note and beware as the information is not from the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare,” she said.

Similarly, the ministry also advised Nigerians to disregard reports of an ongoing recruitment exercise for medical institutions.

“The Ministry is not currently in the process of recruiting general staff for the hospitals,” the spokeswoman said in another statement.

According to her, the ministry only made recruitment calls for Chief Medical Directors and Directors of Administration in a few federal tertiary hospitals.

The recruitment advertisement was placed in two newspapers – Daily Trust and Punch Newspapers, last week.

“The public is to note that the recruitment exercise is not for the Federal Ministry of Health as this falls under the purview of the Federal Civil Service Commission,” she noted.