President Bola Tinubu will be paying a working visit to Abia State this month of May. During the visit, the president was expected to flag off the construction of a $1.3b Abia Medical City.
The President would also during the visit, commission the popular Port Harcourt Road, a major entry point into the commercial city of Aba that was out of use for nearly 20 years, but being reconstructed by Julius Berger.
The two projects are flagship programmes of the Governor Alex Otti-led administration.
Disclosing these at his monthly media chat in Umuahia, Governor Otti revealed that both the flag off ceremony and the commissioning of the road would take place before May 29, adding that Port Harcourt road would be completed by next week.
It was his view that establishment of the Abia Medical City would save billions of Dollars from medical tourism and transport costs for Nigerians.
“I hope that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will do us the honour of coming to commission the road like he had indicated earlier.
“I want to use this opportunity to inform that the President will equally flag off our flagship Medical City project.
“We have signed up a ‘Build-Operate – and- Transfer – Model’. We have also upgraded with a partner who has experience and who is bringing the funding. We have seen the colour of the money. It is a staggering $1.3b which will be invested in the Medical City in Abia.
“If before now, people with some form of complicated ailments were facing India and the rest of the world, where statistics show that on an annual basis, we spend over $2b on medical tourism. We are not greedy, if we get 10 percent of that on an annual basis, that would be $200m that would be sufficient to run that centre,” Gov. Otti said.
Daily Sun
