Senate probes N400b National Primary Health project

By Joshua Omoloye, Abuja

The Senate has initiated a probe into an abandoned  primary health projects worth N400 billion  across the 774 local governments in the country.

The  National Primary Health Center project was initiated by the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo in  2006 to build in each of the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria, a sixty (60) bed primary health centers which was to be complemented with a three bedroom flat, doctors quarters, an ambulance, all basic hospital equipment and drugs.

Concerned by the abandoned project,  Sen. Oloriegbe, Yahaya Ibrahim (Kwara Central)  and Sen. Umar, Sadiq Suleiman (Kwara North) sponsored a motion  to investigate the abandoned project

Consequent upon the consideration of the motion at plenary on Wednesday, the Senate mandated it’s committees on Health and Primary Care and Communicable Disease to investigate in order to determine the status of the 100% project funds warehoused with the defunct Bank PHB, now Keystone Bank.

The committees also has the mandate of determining the level of progress and status of the projects in each of the 774 local government as well as carrying out evaluation of the consultant, contractor, and sub-contracts that participated in the project.

The Senate desired to know the level of dilapidation on the projects and recommend ways of completing the projects nationwide.

Sen. Oloriegbe said it was discovered that the Federal Government deducted monies from the excess crude account of all the 774 Local Government Areas on a monthly basis, warehouse the same with the then Platinum Habib Bank (now Keystone Bank) until the funds required for the actualization of the project was realized.

Oloriegbe further said ” the Senate was aware that the Bill of Quantities for the project was prepared by the then Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement.

“Further aware that despite all those professional pre-contract activities, the contract for the execution of the projects in the entire 774 Local Government Areas was awarded to Messrs Mattans Nig. Ltd without any known tendering and selection process.

“Observes that Messrs Mattans Nig. Ltd. Proceeded and sub-contracted out the jobs to consultant and subcontractors without any verification of capacity and capabilities to properly execute the jobs and without the
consent of the government or its agencies involved then.

“Further observes that various sums of money were released to these sub-contractors through the accounts of Messr Mattans Nig. Ltd domiciled with the then platinum Habib Bank (now Keystone Bank) to carry out the
projects at the selected locations across the 774 Local Government Areas in the Country.

He said, the Senate was disturbed that some of these projects were commenced and abandoned at various stages while majority of them were never started despite huge sums of money released to all the sub-contractors.