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Group threatens to sue Enugu government over diagnostics centre

By Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
07 October 2022   |   2:37 am
A non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network (CRRAN), has asked the Enugu State Government to make the Enugu Diagnostics Centre functional before

A non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network (CRRAN), has asked the Enugu State Government to make the Enugu Diagnostics Centre functional before the end of this month or face legal action.

The multi-billion-naira centre was completed under the Sullivan Chime-led administration, but could not take off owing to the inability to fix its equipment.

Although the Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led government had recently entered an agreement with a private firm to develop the facility and make it functional, CRRAN, however, in a letter to the state government, yesterday, stated that it was worrisome that the place was rotting away more than seven years after it was completed.

President of CRRAN, Olu Omotayo, said: “It is an eyesore for such a complex, housing the Enugu Diagnostics Centre, to be overgrown by weeds.

“The centre, if equipped, would have solved various health needs of Enugu people, in particular, and South East as a whole.

“It is on record that it was through court action against the administration of former Governor Sullivan Chime, in the suit: Civil Liberties Organisation V. Enugu State Commissioner for Health, Suit No. FHC//EN/M/263/2011, where the first decision on the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), in South East Nigeria, was delivered in 2013, forced the Chime administration to complete construction of the centre, which it had earlier abandoned at the foundation level.

“Armed with the information that the Chime government had awarded the contract for the supply of equipment to the centre, CRRAN filed a suit against the state government over its refusal to equip the centre, as well as the old Trade Fair Complex, Enugu.

“The suit: CRRAN V. Enugu State Government, Suit No: FHC/EN/ CS/47/2020, was filed at the Federal High Court Enugu.”

The organisation, in the facts supporting the suit, stated that the contract for the purchase of medical equipment for the commencement of operations at the centre and the Old Trade Fair Complex, has been awarded and public funds made available for that purpose, noting that the funds were diverted for personal use; hence, the reason for non-completion and subsequent abandonment of the project till date.

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