KABALE, UGANDA: A shs7.4 billion magnificent building for intern doctors at Kabale regional referral hospital is still lying idle after the contractor refused to hand it over due to unpaid arrears of 790 million shillings.
The Ministry of Health in May 2017 contracted Musuuza Building Contractors to undertake the construction works of the intern hostels at the hospital and the contract expired on 31 June 2022 but almost a year down the road, the building has not been handed over to the hospital authorities by the contractor.
According to Benard Mugisha, one of the site engineers attached to the company, the contractor demands full payment of 790 million shillings as extra expenditures incurred as a result of price escalation of building materials due to the Covid-19 lockdown between 2020 and 2022. He said that before the Building is handed over to the hospital, the hospital should first make a commitment to pay their arrears.
The Acting Kabale Regional Referral Hospital Director Dr Emmanuel Nzandora said that they waited for the contractor in vain because they were not privy to the information that the contractor needed extra payments adding that the hospital is currently struggling to find space where to accommodate the intern doctors.
The Resident District Commissioner Godfrey Nyakahuma accuses the contractor of withdrawing security personnel who were manning the building without informing the hospital authorities.
On Thursday last week, during her monitoring mission at the hospital, the Minister of State for Economic Monitoring in the Office of the President Beatrice Akello Akori ordered that the contractor should have informed the hospital by tomorrow on the day when the structure will be handed over and failure to do it, he will be arrested.
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