JALAL Arabi, the permanent secretary of the State House, has faulted media reports that the State House Medical Centre had from 2015 to 2017 received N11.01bn as appropriation.

Arabi said: “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 32.97%) for Capital and N225,575,200.60 (representing 48.41%) for Recurrent was actually released.”

The permanent secretary, who said there was zero capital allocation for the centre in 2017, revealed that out of the N331,730,211.00 recurrent appropriation for this year, the actual amount released up to September was N91,370,053.60, representing 27.54 percent.

He said the above figures were verifiable from the ministries of Finance, Budget and National Planning, explaining 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.”

Besides, he said: “In addition, the centre has continued to execute ongoing projects.”

In the same vein, the Presidency has revealed that apart from more than 10,000 registered patients that patronise the State House Medical Centre annually, members of the National Assembly also benefit from the facility’s free services.

Arabi, in a statement issued on Sunday, October 15, on his behalf by Attah Esa, the deputy director of Information, also listed political appointees, military and paramilitary organisations as well as other security agencies as beneficiaries of the State House Medical Centre’s free services.

Arabi said: “Apart from the Presidency, other beneficiaries of the free services include political appointees, the military, paramilitary, other security agencies, members of the National Assembly and the general public.”

He further said that: “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.”

The State House Clinic was recently criticised by Aisha Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, for lacking basic medicaments to take care of patients visiting the hospital.

– Oct 16, 2017 @ 10:35 GMT