Martins Ifijeh
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has commended members of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) for their readiness to partner with Federal Government to reduce cost of construction and ensuring compliance with best practices
The minister, who made the commendation recently during a meeting with a delegation from the institute, led by their President, Mrs. Mercy Iyortyer in Abuja, reaffirm that Federal Government was not planning to build new Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) but to rehabilitate the existing ones.
The minister said it would not be in the interest of the country to start building new PHCs while there were adequate number of PHCs across the country, adding that what was important, was to rehabilitate the existing ones, make them functional, provide care 24-hours daily with all the necessary facilities in place.
He maintained that it would save cost and time to rehabilitate the existing ones rather than constructing new ones. “The rehabilitation work is on-going in phases and the 1st phase is the rehabilitation of a total of 109 PHCs covering each Senatorial District in the country.”
Speaking earlier, Mrs. Mercy Iyortyer said that the essence of their visit was to partner with the ministry on the 10,000 PHCs project recently announced. “We wish to request for collaboration or partnership between your ministry and our institute in the realisation of your objectives, particularly in the area of efficient cost management to achieve realistic costing, project cost monitoring and evaluation, and overall project management of construction projects in your ministry including its parastatals and agencies.”
Iyortyer said that engaging the surveying practicing firm registered with the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) and Quantity Surveyors Board of Nigeria would help the ministry to address the issues of quacks and non-conformity to ethical standard and would also save the ministry money for further infrastructural development.
