Former Spokesperson of Afenifere and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirants in Ekiti State, Prince Dayo Adeyeye has urged the State Government to drop the idea of handing over the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH) to private investors to manage, saying; “it is wrong to handover public health institutions to private investors.”
The governorship aspirant, who described as inhuman, plan by the government to hand-over the management of the Radiology, Laboratory and X-Ray Departments of the Teaching Hospital to private investors, queried why the government can no longer provide funds for the provision of necessary equipment in the hospital.
In a release issued today, by the Director General, Prince Adedayo Adeyeye Movement (PAAM), Hon Bisi Kolawole, Prince Adeyeye said from the words and letters of the State Government’s reaction to the report published online on the planned privatisation of the hospital, there was nothing to suggest that the government was not planning to privatise the teaching hospital.
The governorship aspirant said; “The government disclosed in the press release issued on Sunday, that it was engaging in Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to upgrade obsolete facilities and equipment in the hospital’s Laboratories as well as Radiology and X-Ray Departments through a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement under which a sum of $5.5 million would be invested by the private partner(s).
“Funny enough, the $5.5 million to be provided by the private investors is less than N1 billion, and we ask; can’t the facilities and equipment needed in the hospital be provided from just a fraction of the billions of naira the government has spent on the new government house, civic centre, State pavilion and other unnecessary projects that it is executing with borrowed fund?
“Shouldn’t the use of less than N1 billion to provide facilities in the teaching hospital be accommodated in the N25 billion bond taken by the government? Is the construction of a new government house, so as to provide enough space for Governor Kayode Fayemi and wife to hold meetings more important than the health of Ekiti people?
“When a private organisation invests its $5.5 million to provide facilities and equipment in the teaching hospital, won’t the private investor recoup its investments? And how will the private investor recoup its investments if not by imposing exorbitant fees on Ekiti people?
“Also, the government said it was engaging on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement, and the elementary understanding of this is that; the private investors will manage the facilities and equipment to be provided in hospital for a certain period of time before handing them over to the State government. How long will the facilities and equipment be operated by the private investors?
“We are therefore appealing to the Fayemi to show compassion on Ekiti people for once, by halting the planned privatisation of the State Teaching Hospital because not all of us in Ekiti will follow the governor to Ghana when he leaves government on October 15, 2014.”
