The Kwara State Government has awarded contracts to the tune of 5 Billion Naira for facility upgrades of 70 Primary Health Care centres across the three Senatorial Districts of the State.
The Executive Secretary, Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency (KWHCDA), Professor Nusirat Elelu, said the upgrades will promote the affected PHCs to Level 2 PHCs.
She spoke during the contract signing event held at the office of the Agency and added that the intervention will include infrastructural upgrade, solar installation, provision of staff quarters, potable water supply and supply of ultra-modern hospital equipment across all benefitting Primary Health Care facilities.
“The intervention is coming with the support of the World Bank supported Immunisation Plus and Malaria Progress by Accelerating Progress and Transforming Services (IMPACT) project.
“It will make Primary Health Care facilities better positioned to provide quality and improved Primary Health Care services across the State. The overall objective is to make all the PHC facilities ‘fit for purpose’ since the PHC system is the first contact with the national health system,” she said.
Prof. Elelu implored all the successful bidders to ensure that they deliver quality job to justify the trust reposed in them, warning that any Contractor that is found to be incompetent will have his contract terminated immediately.
She noted that the contracts will be given very close supervision to ensure judicious use of the investment made in the project, pointing out that this is part of the efforts of the Kwara State Government to revitalise the PHC system in the state.
theheraldnews.ng recalls that 53 PHCs had earlier been renovated by the state government, while 9 PHCs are presently under renovation.
“This is a further demonstration of the commitment of the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to the Primary Health Care system. Similarly, some 1,005 Primary Health Care workers, including doctors, were recently recruited into the PHC system to ensure availability of adequate human resources to man these facilities”, Prof. Elelu said.
IMPACT Programme Manager, Dr. Michael Oguntoye, said the contract is to be delivered within 3 months and the State will not tolerate undue delay in the implementation of the project, adding that the PHC upgrade is one out of the several interventions the state is benefitting from the IMPACT project, which is aimed at reducing maternal and child morbidity and mortality.
The contract signing event was attended by successful bidders, members of the Project Implementation Unit of IMPACT project, Directors, and the media.
