With the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority fully committed to reducing medical tourism by Nigerians to other countries, its former managing director Uche Oji, says Nigerians now pay less for cancer treatment than what they spend outside the country. In this interview with BENJAMIN UMUTEME, Oji reveals that the Authority has consistently made profits since it started operations.
What is your assessment of your foray into the health sector?
Like you all know the initial project is the cancer treatment program in Lagos which has have more than 200,000 patient encounters and continuing we are now actually begin to expand that Lagos centre because we are not able to keep up with the demand and also the Lagos centre is currently operating on a mantra of high quality reasonable price to that extent from what we have seen, we are able to deliver the cost of these treatment at about 20% of what you pay elsewhere and we’ve been able to run it in a sustainable manner, so that has given us the big confidence to now expand into other states.
The same thing is happening with Kano where the demand is actually beginning to exceed our capacity and Umuahia as well. So, it is really important that we’re now having after two or three years of experience are now feeling confident to now expand footprint across the other states in the country and also expand the areas of therapy, so it just go beyond cancer and diagnostics and we now also include things like cardiac or cardio treatment and we’re also looking at kidney treatment which is also an area of significant demand in Nigeria. This is all baby steps as we expand because the management team is a home grown operating and management team. These are our own people we hire; we train; we tried the outsourcing of the management team to foreign inaugurated which didn’t really work so well, we have figured out that actually, we input our own management team and where we need the expertise we hire from outside the country.
In the medium term, how much are you projecting foe the facilities?
Each of them requires a certain level of investment, diagnostics centres including working capital including all the radiology equipment is under $5 million each the cancer centres are somewhere between $12 million and $20 million depending on the level of infrastructure on ground that we meet. Each of these will be accessed and then the investment is made and also we provide substantial working capital because we realise that what makes these centres not succeed is just not having enough capital to keep it going and once you miss small capital circle equipment began to break down so this investment include working capital which is necessary to keep the centres going, don’t forget that we are hiring our own therapist, our own doctors, our own oncologist working alongside the partners that we are working with.
With massive brain drain in Nigeria, how does the Authority plan to sustain and keep medical practitioners working at its various centres?
This is a bigger question beyond what NSIA can address, I really don’t know but I will tell you 2 things. We have made the right investment for the right equipment and provide the right training and I don’t think we’ve lost anyone in any of these excursions outside the country; part of this is because the NSIA runs these things with the private sector philosophy.
How much is being projected for construction?
This is an expansion stage, about $100 million just to make investment and get it going, they generate revenue; they have P&L. They are all profitable once we are running, so, once you make the investment, provide the working capital it helps you jump start. It starts first of all as a business so they provide their own revenue, their own P&L. We signed eight today and we will be signing 8 again soon because the negotiations are very complex, there is a mix agreement, there is collaboration agreement, and there are all sorts of things that go up between us and the teaching hospitals. These negotiations have been going on since last year to get to this point, is well over a year that we’ve been back and forth so those who are ready will start and we begin to operate as the others come through, so like we said depending on what the centre is. If it’s a full scale 24/7 diagnostics and radiology centre they have to participate but if it is a cancer treatment centre that could be up to $20 million.
When will the facility start running?
We are beginning to start construction now, we have to go to the base of doing the procurement of the EPC and the designs and all that and then we start construction. When we get through the procurement process which is the next phase of the negotiations, procurement takes time. I think when we lead…. In LUTH from start to finish construction was nine months, Umuahia similar time I mean equipment procurement takes time because we have to import this things clear them and transport them and install them and test them before they start operating but if we move as quickly as expected I think within the next year we will start to see.
Talking about investments, is the NSIA not getting its hands full?
You are right, and this is why we are doing it step by step. The NSIA runs with a little bit of policy of minding its capital deployment. This is why I hear all the time: ‘why you are not in my state, why are you not in my state.’ I say we will get there. We actually run, generate, make profit, and invest the profit. We are not really getting much by way of capital coming in; we haven’t gotten any in a long time. So, we are able to reinvest out of the profit we’ve made from all our previous investments, we manage ourselves little by little, otherwise, I would have signed 36 today-that’s getting my hands too full, but eight is a bit much I agree. That means a whole set of people to hire.
The equipment, the construction is not that much; it’s the training of the people to the standards we want them to operate, world-class standards that is where the issue is really in medical practice. It’s getting them to a point where we feel anybody can fly in from outside the country, and we are starting to see them in our centre in Lagos, they are coming from outside, when you get to that point; that’s investment. And we have a training centre we’ve commissioned in Lagos where we are actually training people. So, you are right, it’s a lot because we are in the financial market, infrastructure. People don’t know this but Development Bank of Nigeria, InfraCredit, Family Homes Fund, Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company, NGClearing. We are in agriculture; we run a fertiliser programme for the President. We own a big farm in Nasarawa state.
We are on toll roads: Lagos-Ibadan, 2nd Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kano road. We are in power; we are doing the biggest solar farm in Kano State. We are in gas based industries, we are building an ammonia plant with OCP in Akwa Ibom state-it is at an early stage. We are in technology, we are investing in data centres, and we also invest internationally. That’s the job! It’s not about getting your hands too full; it’s about defining what the job is and doing it. We have not lost money in the 9 years of running NSIA. We have been consistently profitable.
