Enugu State government is partnering with a group of Nigerians in the diaspora to build an over $300m state-of-the-art medical city in the state.
The medical city, according to the Enugu state governor, Peter Mbah would make the state the hub of medical tourism in African.
The state is expected to provide 100 hectares of land for the project, this would get the state 10 per cent equity stake in the Special Purpose Vehicle, SPV, for the development.
Mabah spoke when the management of African Medical City paid him a visit at the government house, Enugu, noting that the development was in line with his campaign promise to grow the state’s economy from $4.4bn to $30bn and also make the state the premier destination for business, investment, tourism, and living.
He assured the investors, who were mostly Nigerian medical doctors based overseas, that the state government would discharge its obligations with dispatch to ensure a timely realisation of the initiative, blaming lack of modern facilities for the over $1bn, which Nigerians are estimated to spend on medical tourism annually.
“What we are witnessing here today is monumental, and we cannot take the value and the significance of it for granted. This is in line with the humongous promise we made to our people during our campaign for office to grow our GDP exponentially from $4.4bn to $30bn.
“But we recognise that a lot of that growth will come from the private sector; and we also recognise that it has to be enabled by the government. So, our strategy was to have a government-enabled, but private sector-driven economy.
“So, coming to Enugu with an investment size of over $300 million, we knew it was something that must not escape us when we heard of it. We must do everything necessary to ensure that the investment is not only sitting here, but that we also recruit you as one of our testimonials, people who can market Enugu based on your experience in terms of how we made it easy for you to come here and invest and how we have also shown transparency, accountability and integrity in the entire process.
“You can be assured that we will discharge all those obligations creditably,” the governor said.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the African Medical City, Dr. Ethelbert Nwanegbo, said the group was attracted to Enugu by the investment and ease of doing business push by the present administration in the state.
In his remark, the President/CEO of African Medical City, Dr. Uchenna Ogbozor said, “We are looking at this investment to be an over $300m investment. The government is giving us 100 hectares of land, representing 10 percent of the investment.”
