Minister: State House Clinic Not Supervised by Health Ministry

• Uproar as Dogara commends Monguno for punctuality

James Emejo in Abuja

Minister of State for Health, Mr. Osagie Ehanire, thursday said he was not aware of the internal operations of the State House clinic as it is currently not directly under the supervision of his ministry.

Also, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health Secretary, Mrs. Amanda Pam, said it does not have supervisory rights over the clinic.

Both spoke at the commencement of a public hearing of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on State House Clinic, chaired by Hon. Magaji Aliyu (APC Jigawa) to investigate the deplorable condition of the clinic.

The House had passed a motion on the need to investigate the deplorable condition of the State House clinic, and the alleged deductions from the salaries and allowances of the medical staff.

It followed the alarm raised by the wife of the president, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, over the sorry state of the clinic, despite the N11 billion expenditure.

However, Osagie said: “The State House clinic is not directly under my ministry. I don’t know who is directly in charge. I didn’t say that it is not under anybody, maybe under the FCT.

“It is not unusual that the clinic is not under the ministry, this is also applicable in some states. This is what we met on ground.”

It further emerged that it appeared to be that there is no extant law establishing the clinic even though annual appropriations are made for its running.

Meanwhile, there was a mild protest on the floor of the House of Representatives thursday when the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, commended Hon. Mohammed Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno) for being versatile and always present at plenary.

But his appraisal was received with mixed feelings by some members who felt they deserved the commendation as well.

Dogara had during proceedings, asked Monguno to act as acting chairman of the Rules and Business Committee, noting that the Borno lawmaker is “versatile.”

He said: “I must say that Hon. M. T. Monguno is versatile and always present on the floor. He can at any time act as leader, deputy leader and chairman Rules and Business. I think this is commendable.”
Hon. Ayo Omidiran (APC, Osun), therefore, partly blamed the reported deterioration of the clinic on the fact that it’s not under the supervision of a professional body.

The Permanent Secretary, State House, Jalal Arabi, however, said the State House administration is in charge of the clinic.

He said appropriation to the clinic had often fallen short of the actual proposal, leaving the hospital management helpless in equipping it with desired drugs.

Arabi said though the clinic was ordinarily meant to serve the president and his immediate family and close associates as may be permitted by the president, it is also open to staff and other government officials, despite being grossly underfunded.

On allegation on illegal deductions from medical staff salaries, he said some had illegally benefited from call duty allowances which they were not entitled to and had to be cut off. He said allegations of unlawful deductions were not true.

He said over 80 percent of patients who benefitted from the clinic don’t make their National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) contributions to the State House health infrastructure.