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.
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 32.97%) 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 Permanent Secretary
emphasised that the above figures are 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 Medical Centre’s clientele, Arabi stressed that 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.
In the words of the Permanent Secretary,
“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.
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