Jonathan reacts as Aso Rock Clinic denies receiving capital allocation in 2017

…I know nothing about Aso Rock Clinic budget – Jonathan

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

In spite of all the outburst of the Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari and the president’s daughter, Zhara, that Aso Rock Clinic does not have the functional equipment, the Permanent Secretary of the State House Clinic, Mr Jalal Arabi, said that they have not received capital allocation in 2017.

Arabi’s statement came after the House of Representatives set up a committee to probe how the clinic has been expending its annual budgetary provisions.

The Permanent Secretary, in a statement on Sunday, October 15, 2017, said that his claims could be verified from the ministries of finance and budget and national planning.

“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,” the statement signed by Attah Esa, Deputy Director of Information, at the State House read.

“According to 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 that 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,” the statement read further. “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 in the news since Zahra, one of the daughters of President Muhammadu Buhari, took to social media to complain about the state of the facility.

One week after her public criticism, the president’s wife called for a probe of the allocations to the clinic. The House of Representatives has set up a committee to probe the clinic.

Meanwhile, former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that he knows nothing about how the budget allocated to the State House Medical Centre in 2015 was spent.

Speaking on the committee set up by the House of Representatives to look into the allocations of the Clinic, Jonathan said as of the time he handed over to President Muhammadu Buhari, the budget had not been implemented.

He said his administration would not be included in the probe.

“The house of representatives resolved Thursday, October 12, 2017, to probe 2015-2017 allocations to Aso Rock Clinic and some media reports are needlessly dragging the name of former President Goodluck Jonathan into it,” Jonathan said in a statement issued on his behalf by Ikechukwu Eze, his spokesman.

“We had thought that the media should be the first to remind Nigerians that since Jonathan left office on May 29, 2015, he had absolutely nothing to do with the implementation of the budget for that year.

“For emphasis, the 2015 appropriation bill which was passed by the parliament in April was signed into law in May, 2015.

“And since the procurement process, based on the new procurement law, takes at least three months to complete, there was no way Jonathan would have had anything to do with the budget implementation for 2015, before vacating Aso Rock Villa on May 29, 2015.”

Eze said going by the way some people make insinuations on issues that bordered on the development in country, it would appear as if Jonathan had been in office since independence and probably still ruling.

“We expect media houses to always do proper investigations to avoid the convenient choice of always using Jonathan as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of others.”