Dalung uncovers dumped equipment worth N280m
Sports Minister/Chairman of the National Sports Commission(NSC), Solomon Dalung, at the weekend discovered a large cache of medical equipment, worth over N260 million imported 16 months ago, wasting away in different storages at the National Stadium, Abuja.
The equipment include HP Cosmos testing treadmill, anti-gravity treadmill, body composition analyzers, ice making machines, nebulizers, boxes of PR Power body torso, boxes of dumb bells and dumb bell racks, body sculptors and muscle toners. Other equipment include selector chest press, digital lean machines, steppers, cones, gymnastic mats, etc.
Some of the equipment were said to weigh up to 1000kg.
The minister had demanded an explanation on why all the equipment were unmounted and left to waste.
“Why will the Sports Ministry buy such expensive machines and allow it to waste? So you people are now experts in importation and dumping?”
Explaining the inability to put the equipment to use, the Director, Sports Medicine, Dr. Abdulkadir Muazu, said there was no space to mount such heavy duty equipment.
“This building cannot take the entire equipment when installed and we need the center to be close to the athletes when they need treatment. So it has to be located close to the stadium but we don’t have the space for it.
“Moreover, the equipment can only be installed by the suppliers and the one year warranty for such services has already elapsed,” Muazu explained.
Dr. Muazu, who led the inspection tour alongside the Director-General of the ministry, Mallam Alhassan Yakmut, told the minister that that the contractors were given 15 per cent as mobilization fee with a balance of 85 per cent to be paid between 8 to10 weeks, but there was a breach of contract leading to a breach of trust hence their failure to come and install the equipment.
Dalung summoned the contractors to see him as soon as possible to state their own side of the issue.
Three contractors, according to Dr. Muazu, supplied the equipment worth more than N280 million, some of the equipment had already expired as at the time of inspection.
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