WorldStage Newsonline– The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has announced that it is set to partner with the NNPC Medical Service Limited (NMSL) to establish five specialist hospitals and one intravenous fluid plant.
A statement signed by Mr Manji Yarling, the Acting Head, Media and Publicity, ICRC said the facilities are to be established under a Design- Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) Public Private Partnership Model, and would be established across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.
He said the financial advisors to the NMSL on the proposed projects, Sigrun Partners, had visited the commission.
Yarling said the financial advisors were received by the management of the ICRC led by its Acting Director-General, Michael Ohiani.
Ohiani, who spoke during the meeting, said that the initiative was a welcome development which he believed could help address the challenge of medical tourism.
He said that the projects were just a pilot scheme of what could be attainable if they were to succeed.
“We are working with NNPC management for the concession of six projects, five of which are specialist hospitals and one intravenous fluid plant.
“We were very glad when NNPC approached us that they want to showcase how medical facilities can be run through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), and they have selected five states of the Federation to use as pilot,” he said.
The director-general said that ICRC was committed to the timely delivery of the projects which he noted would greatly improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
According to Ohiani, it will also reduce the need for medical tourism among the over 200 million Nigerians.
He informed the delegation that the ICRC was the government agency under the aegis of the Presidency vested with the power to superintend over all PPPs in Nigeria.
The statement quoted Mr Gordon Gofwan, the Nigerian representative of Sigrun Partners as saying “it is committed to supporting PPP projects in Nigeria”.
Gofwan said that Nigeria had no choice but to rely on PPPs for its development, noting that it was ready to partner with the commission to advance the attainment of its mandate.
“Partners from Madrid are in Nigeria presently and they thought it would be important to see a very crucial stakeholder, the ICRC, and that is why we are here today.
“We believe that the future of the country is going to be driven by PPPs because the fiscal space is constrained, and government capacity to fund projects will be severely tested.
“So, if we are going to meet our development aspirations, PPP is inevitable. That is why we felt we should familiarise ourselves with ICRC and put down our credentials.
“We look forward to an active collaboration because there are also opportunities for knowledge sharing with ICRC given the experience we have.
“Some of the projects that are going to come on stream will be novel to Nigeria and we will be very happy to share experiences from other climes, “he said.
The statement said the projects had been proposed to run for a concession period of 20 years,
However, it said of the six pilot projects, two had been issued with Outline Business Case (OBC) certificates while the OBCs for four were being finalised.
The statement said the two projects that had received OBC certificates were multi-specialist hospitals in Abuja and Port Harcourt.
According to the statement, the Abuja project is estimated to accrue a total revenue of N91.7 billion in the 20 years concession period.
“While the projected accruals from the Port Harcourt project within the same period is put at N115.5 billion.”
It said both hospitals would be a 100-bed facility offering specialities which include cardiology, orthopaedics, pulmonology, cerebrovascular surgery, nephrology, oncology and chemotherapy as well as assisted reproduction.
