May 27, 2022

PRESS RELEASE

ICRC receives NNPC delegation over proposed Specialist Hospitals, intravenous plant concession

…Projects to generate over N207bn in 20 years

The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has advanced in its  discussions with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s NNPC Medical Service Limited (NMSL) over the proposed establishment of 5 Specialist Hospitals and one intravenous Fluid Plant across Nigeria.

The facilities which are to be established under a Design- Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) Public Private Partnership Model, is to be established across the 6 geo-political zones.

Financial Advisors to the NMSL on the proposed projects, Sigrun Partners who paid a courtesy visit to the Commission, were received by the management of the ICRC led by its Acting Director General, Michael Ohiani.

Speaking during the meeting, Ohiani said that the initiative was a welcome one which he believed could help address the challenge of medical tourism.

He hinted 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 PPPs and they have selected five states of the Federation to use as pilot,” he said.

The DG stressed that ICRC was committed to the timely delivery of the projects which he noted will greatly improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria, thereby reducing the need for medical tourism among the over 200 million Nigerians.

He informed the delegation that the ICRC is the government agency under the aegis of the Presidency that is vested with the power to superintend over all Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Nigeria.

In his remark, Mr. Gordon Gofwan, Nigerian representative of Sigrun Partners informed the Commission that it was committed to supporting PPP projects in Nigeria.

He said that Nigeria had no choice than 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, 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 come familiarize 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.

The projects have been proposed to run for a concession period of 20 years.

However, of the six pilot projects, two have been issued with Outline Business Case (OBC) certificates and are to be developed simultaneously. The two projects that have received OBC certificates are multi-specialist hospitals in Abuja and in Port Harcourt.

While the Abuja project is estimated to accrue a total revenue of N91,784,999,000 (N91.7 billion) in the 20 years concession period, the projected accruals from the Port Harcourt project within the same period is put at 115.517,868,000 (N115.5 billion).

Both hospitals will be a 100-bed facility, offering specialties which include: Cardiology, Orthopedics, Pulmonology, Cerebrovascular Surgery, Nephrology, Oncology and Chemotherapy as well as assisted reproduction. END.

Manji Yarling
Ag. Head, Media & Publicity
ICRC

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