National Directorate of Public Health Budgeting

The Arab National Directorate of Public Health Budgeting and Emergency Medical Stockpile (Arabic: الادارة الوطنية العربية لمحاسبة الصحة الشعبية والمخزون الطبية الطارئة al-idārah al-waṭanīyah al-‘arabīyah li-muḥāsibat aṣ-ṣaḥah ash-sha‘abīyah wal-makhzūn aṭ-ṭibbīyah aṭ-ṭāri’ah) is a major agency of the Arab Union federal government which answers to the Minister of Health. The directorate has several unique responsibilities regarding public funding of healthcare services, the most notable of which is the administration of the national single-payer system which funds the Arab Union's world-class universal healthcare system.

The directorate is overseen by the Director of the Public Health Budget, who is appointed by and reports directly to the Minister of Health, a member of the federal cabinet. The director has his office at the directorate headquarters on Republican Avenue in Ibrahimia, and the directorate also has facilities at Ministry of Health regional headquarters in Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, Riyadh, Rabat and Tunis.

Most revenue raised by the single-payer public health insurance system are earmarked for funding the National Health Authority (NHA), which owns and operates all public hospitals, clinics, treatment centres and other healthcare facilities and programs, with most of the remainder being used for publicly-funded research and development in the healthcare field, mostly performed by medical schools and not-for-profit scientific institutions, as well as production and distribution of generic medications covering all medical requirements, which are either delivered to inpatients of NHS facilities or dispensed to outpatients via the All-Union Pharmacy Company or private pharmacies filling NHS prescriptions.

The directorate is also responsible for administering the National Emergency Medical Stockpile, an all-union repository of virtually all basic and specialised medications and medical equipment as well as emergency vaccines and treatments, to be used in the event of a major depletion of NHA resources due to a public health crisis or national emergency.

As the Ministry of Health is funded through general taxes and a number of recurring grants in addition to the single-payer system, another major responsibility of the National Director of Public Health Budgeting is forming and heading a Public Health Budget Commission to put together an effective and economical budget for the Ministry of Health as a whole, as well as drafting budget proposals for the Minister of Health to present to the Prime Minister of the Arab Union or the Arab Congress during healthcare- and/or budget-related deliberation. The director is also responsible for hosting and ensuring the unobstructed operation of the State Revenue Committee when auditing any aspect of Ministry of Health finances, as well as keeping track of all discrepancies between availability and requirement of funding, equipment, educational or personnel resources, etc.; in short, all matters of budget and resource availability regarding the Ministry of Health and the national healthcare system are the responsibility of the Director of the Public Health Budget.

Since September 2016, the State Revenue Committee has been conducting an ongoing, highly sophisticated audit of multiple major pharmaceutical corporations as well as two privately-managed addictions treatment centres in the Lebanese Arab Republic, due primarily to information provided to the State Revenue Committee by the Director of Public Health Budgeting which, in addition to unveiling a potential conflict of interest in certain arms of the private healthcare sector, indicated major discrepancies between the amount of public funds diverted to private developers of addictions treatment programs and the total value of all approved claims for public funding of treatment in said programs. In March and April 2020, the CFO of Union Health Group, the parent company of Union Health LLC which oversaw many of the named treatment programs, was found guilty by the Supreme Court of the Arab Union on charges of misappropriation of public funds; the CFO and 14 convicted co-conspirators at the management level were sentenced to 5 years and one year, respectively, of incarceration, and Union Health Group was barred from receiving any further funding from any government or non-profit organisation. The case and investigation continues, with at least four other major firms expected to be indicted for misuse of public funds.