The husband and son of immediate past
Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala,
are set to open a multi-million dollar
hospital in the Gwarimpa area of Abuja,
Nigeria’s capital. Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s husband, Ikemba Iweala,
and their son, Uchechi Iweala, are teaming up to
establish the Capital Health and Surgical Care
Center in Abuja. Both men, who are medical
doctors, will serve as chairman of the board and
medical director respectively at the medical
facility described as state of the art.
The hospital was originally to be formally
opened last June by former President Goodluck
Jonathan, on the assumption that he would be
reelected. Mr. Jonathan’s defeat froze the idea.
Information available on the hospital’s
website, http://www.chscnigeria.com/home/
page?id=Press, states that the hospital “is
conceived to improvetertiary-level healthcare
delivery in Nigeria and Greater West Africa
by providing top-rate service of international
standard.” The hospital, which has been quietly
under construction and development in the last
three years, is equipped with 50 beds, three
operating rooms, Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI), and CT scan.
The undisclosed financiers of the project
apparently spared no expense in conceiving the
project. The project’s architectural design was
undertaken by Perkins + Will Global (http://
perkinswill.com), a major player in the world’s
architectural scene. The firm is based in
Washington, DC with offices in more than 24
countries all over the world. The firm of
architects has designed various multi-billion
dollar projects in the US, Asia, Europe, the
Middle East, and Latin America. The hospital’s
interior design was done by Perkins + Will/
DAR Group.
Another US-based multinational company,
General Electric, handled the hospital’s
technological equipment and infrastructure. The
project does not list any indigenous Nigerian
company as being involved in the conception or
execution of any aspect of the hospital.
While the hospital’s website does not provide
any cost estimate, two sources familiar with
the project claimed that the Iweala’s hospital
cost between$100 and $150 million.
An Abuja-based architect also told this reporter
that the profile Perkins + Wills suggested that
the hospital was pricey. “If we go by the scale
of projects that Perkins + Wills gets involved in,
then we can conclude that this was a major
project,” the US-trained architect said. The hospital’s website provides no information
about the financing of the project.
SaharaReporters contacted the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission to ascertain
whether the anti-corruption agency knew the
financial backers of the project. “No, we are not
aware,” a senior EFCC official told our
correspondent. He added that the agency had
no reason to investigate the source of the
hospital’s funds. He added, “The only issue is
that the arrowheads of the hospital are family
members of the former Coordinating Minister of
the Economy. But we cannot just investigate
unless we receive information that public funds
were somehow committed to the project.”