Judex Okoro, Calabar
Trouble is brewing at University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, as the contractor who built the isolation center has threatened to shut it down following non-payment of N68 million debt.
Checks revealed that the Centre for Emerging Pathigens Tesearxh and Management (UCTH-CEPREM) was started in 2017 in the hospital under the former Chief Medical Director, Prof Thomas Agan, and it is ninety-five percent completed.
The centre is the only one within Cross River, Ebonyi, and Benue states, which are endemic for Lassa Fever.
With the centre, the current practice of sending specimens to Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Edo state would be reduced.
The Managing Director, Obi Achara Ltd, Mr Obi James Achare, who issued the threat in a press briefing in Calabar, said he would apply all legal means to close down the centre for failure of the hospital management to meet its own contractual agreement.
Obi said he had written a series of letters on the need to offset the amount of N68m owend him, adding that three months after, nothing had been said or done even as suppliers were breathing down his neck since 2017.
He said: “We have written a series off letters in December 2019, Janauary and March, 2020 to the hospital management over the non payment of the balance of our payment to the tune of N68million. But there has been to reply to that effect.
“We completed the project and many others as far back as 2017, but they refused to pay us. But for the goodwill and the interest of the people, we decided to hand over the centre with the view of getting payment as promised but till date we have not heard anything.
“We followed all due process in executing the contractual agreement and are happy that the centre has become very useful in the outbreak of COVID-19.
“We have written severally to the management all to no avail; we would apply all legal means to close down the centre for the failure of the hospital management to meet its own contractual agreement,” he stated.
Reacting, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) Universirty of Calabar Teavhing Hospital (UCTH), Prof Ikpeme Ikpeme, admitted that the contractor built the center but promised that management was making every effort to pay once funds were available.
His words: “We are not denying that we are owing him, but we pleaded with him to kindly hand over the place to us which he did and we promised to pay him when funds were available.”
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