- Earmarks 20 other health sector devt. projects
In a deliberate bid to bolster the nation’s health sector, the Nigerian Sovereign Investments Authority, NSIA, said plans were afoot by it to build a world-class hospital in Abuja.
The Authority daid that it was also in the proces of building 20 other significant health projects to cater to treatment of cancer.
The Projects would cover such other areas as radiology and diagnostics, and would be sited across the country to boost the health sector.
Managing Director of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, Uche Orji, unfoldes these ambitious health sector intervention initiatives on Thursday in Abuja.
The occasion was the periodic Media chat organised and hosted by Presidential Media team at the State House.
In fact, the NSIA had already built three world-class Cancer centers at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and two radiology diagnostics centers in Kano and Umuahia.
Orji said the NSIA’s health sector initiatives were being managed by its health care investment company.
Read him: “I am happy to report that those centers are working successfully.
“At the moment, these three projects are doing quite well.
“Our objective now is to build 20 more of theses centers across the country. We are starting this year with three and next year, seven and then another ten the following year.
“This is everything from cancer, to radiology to diagnostics, and then our flagship programme is our world-class hospital that we are building here in Abuja that will be a center for advanced medicine.”
Orji said the $1.7b Presidential Infrastructure Development funds, PDFI, were being channeled into the ongoing Lagos to Ibadan road, the 2nd Niger bridge, the Abuja to Kano road and the Mambilia hydro power projects.
He disclosed that the NSIA projects considerations were driven by four major parameters, including “nationwide importance, ability to attract local and international capital, projects with strong commercial and social returns and conducive legal environment for such investments.”
According to him: “These roads have nationwide importance, we are looking to bringing in other commercial capital contributors both Pension funds, these projects will be commercial, profitable over time because, they are economic assets. That’s the only way they are going to be maintained.”
He disclosed that the first phase of the 2nd Niger bridge and the Lagos to Ibadan expressway, would be completed in July, 2022, while the Abuja to Kano road should be completed, later this year.
On the Presidential Fertilizer initiatives, Orji disclosed that the agency revived the domestic fertilizer production, raising the blending plants from the initial 4 in 2016 to current 47 blending plants across the country.
The NSIA has grown fertilizer blending plants in Nigeria from the four available in 2016 to 47 blending plants currently, while also crashing prices from about N13,000 in 2020 to the current average cost of about N7,000
He noted that government had through the domestic initiatives, created employment opportunities for teeming Nigerians.
Recall that the NSIA was established by the federal government in 2012 as a multi-purpose investments vehicle to manage the nation’s sovereign wealth fund.
The agency’s ownership structure is divided among the federal, States and the Local governments, in the ratios of 45.8%, 36.2%, 17.8% and 0.16% for FCT.
This is to enhance infrastructure development, create a saving base for the future as well as provide stabilization support at times of economic crises.
The federal government had also in 2016, saddled the agency with the responsibilities of managing its Presidential Infrastructure Development Funds, with a total contributions of $1.7b, made up of initial contributions of $650m, $265m, and the recently recovered $311m Abacha looted funds which was transferred to the agency.
Orji had reviewed the journey of NSIA in the last one year or thereabout, saying, “We returned $160million in profit out of which $108m was core profit and something like $51m was exchange rate- related because we hold positions in Dollar, Euro, Pounds Sterling, and Japanese Yen, investments we have in different parts of the world.
“So, if you convert that in naira and exchange rate has gone down by N30, that created $51million of profit margin. But $10 million came from the core investments we made- that was 2020.
“And it was good year because we saw things that were going on. In investments, you buy when people are selling and sell when people are buying. It is as simple as that. Buy low, sell high.”
He explained what the NSIA did in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read him: “What my colleagues and I decided to do in the middle of COVID-19, was that when everybody was selling everything, we decided to buy and that turned out a profitable strategy for us.
“This year, we have been very conscious because of a number of things, from inflation to high cost of stocks. It is always difficult to find real value.
“But I will also say that the first half of the year, has been okay. I hate to give you a number for the first half of the year and for the second half, things turn around. I think this year will be a lot more difficult and that’s because there are just too many variables that the world just has to deal with.”
He said despite the effect of COVID-19, high valuation of stocks, among other variables, the NSIA, he said, had been quite surprised by “our results this year, very surprised and If things don’t turn out negatively like I fear, then I think that this second half of the year will not be something that we should be worried about because I think we are doing something quite close, as close as what we have done in 2020.
“We still have August, I haven’t even seen July performance because the month hasn’t closed.”
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