Aso Villa Clinic Received Just One-Third Of Its Budgetary Allocation Since 2015 – Perm Sec

Jalal Arabi, permanent secretary of the State House, says Aso Villa clinic received only N1,195,257,022.13 out of the budgeted N3,365,000,000 since 2015.

The State House made the disclosure in a statement issued on Sunday and signed by Attah Esa, its deputy director of information.

According to the statement, Arabi said the State House Medical Centre has been short-changed by more than two-third of its allocation for about 2-years.

The Perm-sec said evidences of the claim are at the ministries of finance and budget and national planning.

The statement reads: “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%).

The statement said despite the shortfalls between budgetary provisions and actual releases, the medical centre provided free services to the “over 10,000 registered patients” annually.

“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.

“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 medical centre has been under intense scrutiny after Zahra, one of the daughters of President Muhammadu Buhari, criticized the facilities at the clinic.

Zahra’s criticism was followed up days later by her mother, Aisha Buhari, who called for the probe of the allocations to the clinic.

The development prompted the House of Representatives to set-up a panel of enquiry to investigate the finances of the medical centre.