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Why Aso Rock clinic is in a mess -Perm Sec

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Why Aso Rock clinic is in a mess -Perm Sec

Aso Rock Clinic insists non-reception of capital allocation in 2017 cause of rot
Apparently in efforts to explain the reason for the alleged rot in Aso Rock Clinic, the management has insisted it did not receive any capital allocation in 2017.

It also challenged anyone doubting the claim to verify from the Ministries of Finance as well as Budget and National Planning.

This was contained in a statement the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Jalal Arabi, released through Attah Esa, Deputy Director of Information, State House, on Sunday.

The statement read, “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 N2.9 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%).”

According to the statement, not minding the shortfalls between budgetary provisions and actual releases, Aso Rock medical centre provided free services to more than “10,000 registered patients” annually.

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

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“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 situation of the clinic located at Nigeria’s seat of power has remained an issue in national discourse after the wife and daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha and Zainab respectively took turns to decry the poor state of the clinic.

It was even alleged by Aisha that the clinic cannot boast of having ordinary “syringe”.

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