NIGERIA needs stronger coordination across government, the legislature and the private sector to turn health-tax proposals into effective sources of healthcare financing and tools for reducing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has said.
Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA, Dr Kelechi Ohiri, made the call at a National Stakeholder Co-Creation Workshop on Realising Health Taxes for Sustainable Health Financing and Curbing Non-Communicable Diseases in Nigeria.
The workshop, held in Abuja, focused on moving health-tax reforms beyond policy discussions to implementation, with particular attention to sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), tobacco and alcohol.
Ohiri said health-tax reform could not be treated as the responsibility of the health sector alone, stressing that it cuts across taxation, fiscal policy, legislation, public financial management and domestic resource mobilisation.
‘Health-tax reform is not the mandate of any single sector or ministry,’ he said, adding that it requires the leadership of the Ministry of Finance, lawmakers, private-sector stakeholders, civil society, the media and other relevant institutions.
According to him, Nigeria faces a dual challenge of persistent infectious diseases and maternal health concerns alongside a growing burden of NCDs associated with the consumption of products such as sugary drinks, tobacco and alcohol.
He noted that health taxes could address both challenges by discouraging harmful consumption while creating additional and more predictable domestic resources for healthcare.
The NHIA boss said the country was already at an important stage in the development of SSB taxation, noting that the Senate had passed a bill seeking to strengthen the existing SSB tax framework. The bill is awaiting concurrence by the House of Representatives.
He added that the proposed reforms would seek to channel part of the resulting revenue towards health promotion, disease prevention and primary healthcare.
However, Ohiri cautioned that legislation alone would not guarantee success, saying Nigeria must establish the institutional, fiscal and administrative mechanisms required to implement the reforms effectively.
He identified political leadership, institutional capacity and robust public financial management as critical to ensuring transparency in revenue collection and utilisation.
‘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.
The workshop also placed emphasis on the potential of health taxes to support health insurance coverage. Ohiri cited the Philippines as an example of a country that has used health-tax revenues to support the expansion of health insurance, saying Nigeria could draw lessons from similar approaches.
Stakeholders also identified the need to strengthen taxation of tobacco and alcohol through further evidence, advocacy and policy engagement, while exploring mechanisms for directing health-tax revenues towards health insurance and financial protection for vulnerable Nigerians.
The Health Tax Task Team, established as an action-oriented platform, is expected to provide strategic guidance, strengthen coordination among institutions, engage policymakers and support the transition from policy design to implementation.
The World Health Organisation has similarly stressed that successful health-tax reforms require more than technical evidence, noting that policymakers must also understand the institutional and stakeholder environment in which such taxes are negotiated and implemented.
For Nigeria, the emerging policy challenge is therefore not simply whether health taxes can raise additional revenue or reduce harmful consumption, but whether government can build a coordinated system capable of collecting, managing and transparently deploying the proceeds to deliver measurable health outcomes.
The Abuja engagement consequently shifted the conversation from the justification for health taxes to the practical requirements for implementation: clear institutional ownership, cross-government coordination, legislative action, effective revenue administration and credible public financial management.