The NNPC-led Oil & Gas Industry Intervention Force yesterday kicked off construction of 200-bed Infectious Diseases Hospital with a ground breaking ceremony at its site in Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State.
The hospital which will be sited on a 1,586 square metre-space would serve as zonal isolation centre for COVID-19 and be retained afterwards as a referral hospital for communicable disease, an official explained at the ceremony.
The event was symbolic in many respects, first of which is the fact that Bayelsa is the State from where the first crude was extracted in Nigeria.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, said as much when he disclosed that Bayelsa was picked as the pilot State for the project “given its pioneering role in the history of Oil and Gas in the Country and its current contribution of about 40 per cent to onshore crude oil output.”
In a press release today in Abuja, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, explained that the ceremony signals the beginning of the Third Phase of Oil and Gas Industry’s support programme, whose objective is to plant a permanent Emergency and Infectious Diseases Hospital in each of the six regions of the country.
The Oil and Gas Industry has pledged to contribute to government’s effort to battle the Covid-19 pandemic by raising about N21billion worth of support to the health sector.
Each member of the Oil and Gas coalition will provide the support through their internal procurement processes.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, whose address was delivered by the coordinator of the initiative, Mr. Bala Wunti, explained that NNPC teamed up with its Joint Venture partners across the Upstream, Midstream and Downstream sectors to support the Health Sector.
Wunti who is also Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), an NNPC subsidiary, said the Industry Group coalition members have shared the burden of raising the N21billion-worth amongst themselves.
Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) stated at the event that the project being delivered in Bayelsa State would engender a valuable medical asset to the South South region of the Country while Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, who performed the ground-breaking ceremonial, thanked the Minister for attracting the project to Bayelsa, which is also the Minister’s home state.
Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 and Government Secretary Boss Mustapha, was represented at the event by Mr. Chukwuemaka Nwajiobi, Minister of State for Education.
Cover Pix shows Gov. Douye Diri of Bayelsa State performing the ground breaking for a permanent Emergency and Infectious Diseases Hospital for the South-South Region in Yenagoa.
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