Health

Contractor Threaten To Seal Cross River Isolation Centre

Published

4 years ago

2020/05/09

The contractor who built the Cross River State Covid-19 Isolation center has pleaded with the Minister of Health, Prof. Osagie Ehanire and the NCDC to intervene or he will be forced to seal the place over failure by the University Of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) to pay him after years of completing the job.

Mr. Obi Achara, Managing Director of Obi Achara Nigeria LTD, said the company had initially agreed to hand over the keys to the facility out of goodwill and the promise by management to pay, but that that goodwill has not been reciprocated.

His words; “I released those keys because I wanted to save lives even though I was told and the state government was coming for an inspection, nobody spoke about the due process at that time, but immediately they got the keys, they started singing another song of due process and so on.”

Obi added that his suppliers have been threatening his life, saying “my goodwill has been termed stupidity even as my suppliers have threatened my life severally.” He stated.

Mr. Obi who quipped that he had taken the matter to court, added that he would have rather settled the matter out of court but for the manner he has been treated by management UCTH.

When contacted, Prof. Ikpeme Ikpeme, Chief Medical Director of the institution did not deny owing the contractor but blamed the paucity of funds for the delayed payments.

It has been gathered that the contract for the Cross River state COVID-19 isolation center was awarded in November 2016 by the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital for the construction of an Infectious Diseases Centre at 68.7 million to Obi Achara LTD.