FEC okays procurements to boost cancer management

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved three contracts for the procurement of equipment for cancer management at the Federal Medical Centre, Kastina and Usman Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto.

Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, briefed State House correspondents after a virtual FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said, “FEC today considered three memos from the ministry of health—all of them were in respect of procurement.

“First was a memo from Federal Medical Centre, Kastina, for an Oncology and Radiotherapy Centre to be able to handle cancer cases.

“The projected award was to a company for N1.23 billion with a completion period of 42 weeks.’’

Ehanire said that the project would be executed by a Nigerian company.

According to him, the second and third memos are for re-equipping UDUS which is one of Nigeria’s Centres of Excellence for managing cancer.

“Their equipment is old and broken down; the most important is the leading accelerator which is going to be replaced and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine which will also be replaced.

“The MRI machine at the cost of N440.4 million from the budget appropriation to replace the old dysfunctional one and the linear accelerator at 887.6 million from the Special Intervention Fund,” he said.