The presidency has since
dismissed a report by Premium Times Media, detailing how President
Muhammadu Buhari proposed N3.8 billion as capital spending for State
House’s clinic over and above capital allocation meant for all other
nation’s 16 teaching hospitals combined.
Premium Times however insisted that the Presidency failed to provide facts contradicting the story it still stands by.
Presidency however described the story as “insensitive” and “off the mark”.
“This report is not
simply off the mark but one that is insensitive to the government’s
effort to improve medical facilities at home in Nigeria,” a statement by
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba
Shehu, read.
The statement however
admitted that the government budgeted N3.8 billion to be spent on the
State House Clinic. Shehu said that the State House Clinic serves not
just the president and staff of the presidency, but government officials
and others.
“The increased spending
on government health institutions in the current budget should be seen
in the light of the administration’s plan to improve medical facilities
at home as a way of discouraging overseas trips in search of treatment
by citizens which eat away from our foreign exchange,” he stated.
While the presidential
clinic received N3.87billion as proposed capital allocation, the
country’s 16 federal government-owned teaching hospitals individually
only got a fraction of that vote.
For instance, the
proposed budget, N212, 539,245 for capital projects at the University of
Lagos Teaching Hospital in Lagos, while the capital allocation for the
Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna, is N230, 904,795.