State House Clinic received N1.2bn in 3 years – Presidency

By Abdullahi M. Gulloma Abuja

The Presidency has dismissed reports suggesting that the State House Medical Centre had received N11.01 billion as appropriation between 2015 and 2017, saying the clinic only got about N1,195,257,022 billion during the period under reference.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Deputy Director (Information) at the Presidential Villa, Mr. Attah Esa. Th e statement quoted the Permanent Secretary in State House, Mr. Jalal A. Arabi as saying that the medical centre had zero capital allocation in the 2017 budget.
He clarified that out of N331, 730,211.00, being recurrent appropriation for this year, the actual amount released up to September was N91, 370,053.60, representing only 27.54 per cent.
“According to the Permanent Secretary, State House, Jalal A.
Arabi, contrary to the above claims, out of the total Capital Appropriation of N2,941,062,044.00 and Recurrent Appropriation of N465,935,358.00 for the period under reference, only the sum of N969, 681,821.53 (representing 3297%) for Capital and N225,575,200.60 (representing 48.41%) for Recurrent was actually released.“Arabi also said it may interest the public to know that there was zero capital allocation for the Medical Centre in 2017, while out of the N331,730,211.
00 being recurrent appropriation for 2017, the actual amount released up to September was N91,370,053.60 (representing only 27.54%),” the statement said.
Th e Permanent Secretary emphasised that the above figures were verifiable from the Ministries of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
He observed that during the three year period under review (indeed two years since no capital allocation for 2017), and despite the shortfalls between budgetary provisions and actual releases, the Medical Centre continued to provide free services to the over 10,000 registered patients annually.
In addition, the Centre has continued to execute on-going projects.
Giving further insight into the scope of the Centre’s clientele, Arabi stressed that apart from the Presidency, other benefi ciaries of the free services include political appointees, the military, paramilitary, other security agencies, members of the National Assembly, and the general public.
“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,” Attah further explained

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