President Muhammadu Buhari has
directed that the State House Medical Centre (SHMC) should revert to serving
its original purpose, according to Jalal Arabi, state house permanent
secretary.
Arabi said this on Monday when he
appeared before the senate committee on federal character and
inter-governmental affairs during a 2019 budget defence session in Abuja.
He said the facility was
initially meant to serve only the first and second families as well as Aso
Villa staff.
The presidency official added
that while the directive was a case of ‘‘cutting one’s coat according to your
cloth”, it will also make the medical centre functional.
“Without prejudice to what is
currently obtainable at SHMC, the intention to revert to a clinic is a
presidential directive,” he said.
“This is to make sure that the
facility is functional and serves the purpose for which it was established, ab
initio. It was initially meant to serve the first and second families and those
working within and around the Villa.
‘‘The overstretching of
facilities at the medical centre by patients is some of the challenges the
Centre have been going through. It wasn’t meant for that purpose.
‘‘Nobody was charging anyone for
any services and relying on appropriation means we will depend on subvention
when it comes to run the Centre.
‘‘Whatever comes is what you
utilise and if the last patient comes in to take the last drugs based on the
last budgetary release, that is it and we have to wait till another release is
done.
“But this new development means
that services will be streamlined to a clinic that will serve those that it was
meant to serve when it was conceived.”
Arabi also said the centre had a
total budget of N1.03 billion in the 2018 budget, with N698 million as capital
expenditure and N331.7 million as overhead cost.
He said while the allocation for
overhead cost was fully released, only N231.9 million was released for capital
expenditure.
TheCable had reported that the
clinic lacks basic medical equipment and drugs such as syringe, paracetamol,
cotton wool.
Aisha, wife of President
Muhammadu Buhari, had also lamented the poor state of the facility.
The house of representatives
subsequently passed a resolution to set up a committee which will probe how the
N10.9 billion said to have been released to the clinic from 2015 to 2017, was
spent.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com