Permanent Secretary of the State House, Jalal Arabi has said the Aso Rock clinic did not receive any capital allocation in 2017.

Background:

• Zahra Indimi, daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari had complained that despite the allocation to the clinic, it still lqcjed basic equipment.
• Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari has also lamented that she was asked to travel abroad for treatment when she visited the hospital. She called for investigation into how allocation to the clinic was spent.

What the Perm Sec. said:

• In a statement on Sunday, Arabi said the Ministries of finance and budget and national planning can verify his claim.
• He said despite this, the medical centre provided free services to the “over 10,000 registered patients” annually.

“The attention of the presidency has been drawn to recent media reports suggesting that the State House Medical Centre had received N11.01billion as appropriation for the period 2015-2017,” read the statement signed by Attah Esa, deputy director of information, at the state house.

“According to the permanent secretary, State House, Jalal A. Arabi, contrary to the above claims, out of the total capital appropriation of N2.9 billion and recurrent appropriation of N465 million for the period under reference, only the sum of N969 million (representing 32.97%) for capital and N225 million (representing 48.41%) for recurrent was actually released.

“It may interest the public to know that there was zero capital allocation for the medical centre in 2017, while out of the N331 million being the recurrent appropriation for 2017, the actual amount released up to September was N91 million (representing only 27.54%).”

“In addition, the centre has continued to execute on-going projects,” the statement read.

“Apart from the presidency, other beneficiaries of the free services include political appointees, the military, para-military, other security agencies, members of the national assembly, and the general public,” it read.

“Considering the unrestricted patronage base and free services of the State House Medical Centre, coupled with the funding hiccups and periodic receipts, it may not be far-fetched to notice gaps between demand and supply of medical equipment and consumables at certain stages of the budget circle.”

Azeez