- From $12m university support programme to $6m hospital support scheme
Over the last three decades since its establishment in 1989, the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited has gradually built a reputation as a reasonably well run company that has demonstrated a commitment to worthy public causes. In partnership with the Nigerian Academy of Letters and the Nigerian Academy of Science, respectively, for instance, the NLNG has since 2004 sponsored three of the most prestigious, credible and highly coveted academic prizes in the country, namely The Nigeria Prizes for Literature, Literary Criticism and Science. In 2014, the NLNG undertook another major initiative when the company launched its University Support Programme (USP) designed to demonstrate its commitment to complementing government and other stakeholders’ efforts towards the development of education in the country.
Under the USP, the NLNG committed $12 million to building modern engineering laboratories and/or furnishing them with modern engineering equipment in six universities – University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin, University of Port Harcourt, University of Maiduguri, Ahmadu Bello University and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, – across the six geo-political zones of the country. The proposed projects had been completed and commissioned in all the designated universities by 2016 at a unit cost of $2 million per institution.
When the NLNG thus on January 24, 2022, flagged off its Hospital Support Programme (HSP) aimed at helping to improve facilities in hospitals across the country and signed a Memorandum-of-Understanding (MOU) with six Nigerian teaching hospitals in this respect, it has the credibility and track record to be taken seriously. Just like its USP implemented earlier, this project is wholly borne out of the company’s own voluntary desire to fulfill its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the society where it does business without waiting for the prompting of anyone.
The NLNG HSP will be actualised through the expenditure of $6 million to be invested in 12 teaching/tertiary institutions from the six geo-political zones at a cost not exceeding $500,000 per hospital. While signing the MOU on behalf of the NLNG, the company’s managing director/chief executive officer, Dr Phillip Mshelbila, said that the initiative is a long-term response to needs identified in the medical sector in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the surge in patients exposed the inability of the country’s health system to cope with health emergencies on such a large scale. Thus, beyond its immediate donation of medical equipment and consumables worth over N1.4 billion to a number of federal and state medical institutions and facilities located in its host communities to help fight the pandemic, the company conceived the HSP as a more fundamental and enduring intervention.
In the first phase of the programme, the teaching hospitals to benefit are the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (LUTH), Idi-Araba; University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, (UATH), Gwagwalada; Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, (AKTH), Kano; University of Benin Teaching Hospital, (UBTH), Benin; University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, (UCTH), Calabar and Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, (NDUTH), Yenagoa. It is significant that specific projects have been earmarked for each institution based on earlier National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) assessment exercise. Thus, LUTH will be provided with a new obstetrics and gynaecology ward, UATH with a newly constructed and equipped modern maternity and child complex while an existing building will be remodelled and converted into a 15-bed intensive care unit (ICU) at the UBTH.
The NDUTH will be provided with a six-bed ICU and a four-bed renal dialysis unit connected to its existing operating theatre while a neuro-surgical centre will be constructed for the UCTH. Institutions to benefit in the second phase of the programme are the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, ATBTH, Bauchi; Jos University Teaching Hospital, (JUTH), Jos; Nnamdi Azikwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi; Federal Medical Centre, (FMC), Asaba; University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, (UUTH) and the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPHTH), Rivers State. Findings of an ongoing NEEDS analyses at the various universities will determine which projects will be executed in the second phase. Projects in the first phase are planned to be completed this year while those in phase two are scheduled for completion in 2023.
Not only does the NLNG deserve commendation for its sense of obligation to give back to society, its scientific way of identifying beneficiary institutions as well as projects to be executed is laudable. We commend this noble example to other organisations in the private and public sectors of the economy.
