The Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Harmony Holdings Limited, Mallam Abdullahi Abdulmajeed, has on Wednesday embarked on an inspection tour of Harmony Advanced Diagnostic Centre (HADC), a subsidiary company of Harmony Holdings in the health industry.

The centre has just taken delivery of some newly procured machines to boost its operational capacity and service delivery, following injection of fresh funds for its revitalisation by Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

The GMD/CEO inspected the newly procured machines alongside some existing ones that had been repaired in both the laboratory and radiological sections of the centre.

Speaking on the sidelines of the inspection tour, the GMD/CEO confirmed that the lab section of the centre is now at 100 per cent operational capacity. He however clarified that the radiological section of the centre has only attained 50 per cent operational capacity and is primed for full operational capacity in the next one week when repair work is finalised and another set of new machines is delivered.

Abdulmajeed explained to press men how the Governor AbdulRazaq-led administration inherited collapsed machines and backlogs of obligations at the diagnostic centre.

According to him, “The first set of interventions made by His Excellency Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq concerning Harmony Advanced Diagnostic Centre (HADC) was to clear the backlogs of service level agreement fees due to G.E that had accumulated between 2017 and 2019 to the tune of N10 million. He also approved the disbursement of funds for the preventive maintenance of all the machines that had broken down in the centre. That was before His Excellency even settled down in office. It was about the same time he was fixing the abandoned secretariat project, tackling the water question and doing so many other interventions across sectors.

“The intervention revived the operational capacity of the centre. When I also got appointed as GMD/CEO in December 2019, we made an appeal to His Excellency for funds to fix the UPS machines that also went down at the time. We got the approval to do so and it enhanced the service delivery and operations of the company to the extent that we funded our overhead and maintenance cost from what we made during the period. I should not also forget that His Excellency at the early days of his administration facilitated the procurement of a brand new haematology analyser for the centre.”

The Harmony Holdings chief explained that the new investments come as the centre witnessed breakdown of machines some months back which affected its service delivery and operational capacity.

He added that the machines are susceptible to breaking down because many of them were aged even as at the time they were delivered under the last administration.

“They were also closed-system machines which meant that they can only be repaired by their manufacturers. Getting them to fix it took a lot of negotiations, time and efforts,” he added.

The list of machines newly procured include, Auto Chemistry Analyser, FIA Meter Plus, 2-Channel Coagulation Analyser, Electrolyte Analyser, Haematology Analyser (5-part), and Electrophoretic Machine.

The CT Scan 16 Slice Machine and Mammography Machine are also now working perfectly after repair and maintenance work, while the Fluoroscopy Machine, X-ray Machine and Ultrasound Machine are still undergoing repair which would conclude soon.

The new investment into the centre also included the renovation and facelift of the physical environment which is about the biggest since its inception.

Outstanding salaries of staff during the operational downtime have also been cleared, and there is new investment in the human capital with restaffing, restructuring, redeployment and management structure transformation.

Abdulmajeed lamented that despite sinking billions of naira into the establishment of the centre, the previous administration did not declare profit at anytime in their years of stewardship.

They also engaged Mediquip Medical Services, a consultant touted to be of international standard, to manage the centre, with no profit made or dividends sent into the coffers of the government. This is even as the previous administration continued to fund the centre under private management with subventions.

He alluded to the case of Kwara Hotel whose management was transferred to a private company without results on deliverables, noting what his administration has been doing is turnaround management to fix the rots across board.

“There was no asset replacement plan. The previous administration left hundreds of million naira in contractual obligations with BOTAD in respect of the first and only set of machines they got for the centre.”

The GMD/CEO meanwhile announced 25 per cent discount on all lab procedures of the centre for one month, starting from Thursday, September 22nd.

He said it was a way of placating Kwarans for the disappointment they witnessed during the downtime.

The chief executive wooed the general public to patronise the centre which he said now has a full operational capacity for lab procedures.