Edo PDP blasts Obaseki over alleged plans to privatize hospital
Edo state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday berated Governor Godwin Obaseki over alleged plans to privatize the new five star hospital built by the immediate past governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
It will be recalled that the new hospital was commissioned by President Mohammadu Buhari as one of the legacy projects of Oshiomhole’s administration.
Governor Obaseki had at the annual lecture series by the correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Benin said the state government does not have the capacity to run the new hospital owing to the equipment purchased and the care it was meant to provide.
His words: “If we run it the way we run our other hospitals, that thing will not be there in the next two years. Our plan is to look for private partner who understands how to run hospital, who has done it in other parts of the world to come to run that hospital. They will ensure they maintain it and provide the kind of care we want.”
State chairman of the PDP, Chief Dan Orbih, noted that handing over the hospital to private firm would make the hospital inaccessible to majority of the people of the state.
Chief Orbih stated that it was shocking that the hospital has not been put to use about one year after it was commissioned by President Buhari.
Orbih blamed Oshiomhole for the non-functioning of the hospital saying the comments of Obaseki confirmed that the hospital was a fraud.
He alleged that a plot has been uncovered by some leaders of the APC to use their firm registered abroad to come and bid for the management of the hospital.
His words, “At the commissioning ceremony, Oshiomhole said it was a five star Hospital fully equipped to meet the health need of the people. He said Nigerians will no longer have cause to go abroad to medical treatment.
“I am happy that Obaseki has admitted that the hospital built by Oshiomhole was a fraud. They used state money to build an empty hall. I am ready to defend that it is fraud. They have concluded plans to register a company with some of their children as directors to come and bid to be partners to run the hospital. There is going to be punishment for the sins against Edo.”
