Zambia: Northern Province administration threatened to terminate the contract for the construction of Nsumbu Hospital in Nsama District. Shachitari Construction Company failed to complete works and handover the project by the given deadline.
The company was required to handover the project by July 8, which was given as the extended deadline. However, the failure to do so incited strict action from the administration.
Northern Province Deputy Permanent Secretary, Beauty Phiri, was disappointed with the contractor. She claimed that they repeatedly failed to complete the work after several extended periods of time.
Phiri said the provincial administration is not going to entertain any further delays by the contractor. They also stated that the situation is getting out of hand.
She expressed fear that the contractor may not finish the project any time soon due to the pace at which he was doing the work.
Phiri made these remarks while touring the construction site to check on the progress of the project in Nsumbu area of Nsama District. DPS has since summoned Shachitari Construction Company for another meeting in Kasama to chat the way forward.
“We need to remedy the situation by ensuring that the construction works at the hospital are completed so that the facility can start operating,” she noted.
Deputy PS Phiri charged that the locals have waited for a long time to have access to improved health services.
Accordingly, she warned that government will not hesitate to terminate contracts for local contractors. The warning was to encourage the contractors to honor deadlines and work professionally.
On the other hand, Shachitari Construction Company Site Engineer Joshua Mumba Said his company has made progress. He further claimed that the major works have been completed.
Mumba, however, attributed the failure to complete the works to delayed payments and loadshedding Lake Tanganyika Development Project which is funding the project has not made timely payments, which led to several delays.
To this, Lake Tanganyika Development Project Coordinator, Dora Kamweneshe, refuted claims. She said the implementation of the project by the contractor is slow, hence affecting the execution of payments.
“That delayed payment that has been given is not true because the last payment was made in April 2024, and if they had executed works to warrant another payment, we could have done that, but the implementation of the project is very slow,” she added.
Meanwhile, Nsama District Health Director Venancio Banda urged the contractor to expedite work so that people could start using the facility.
Dr Banda said the population in Nsumbu has increased, and the only rural health centre in the area is not sufficient to provide health services.
“We are compelled to transfer X-rays and maternity cases to either Mporokoso or Kaputa districts, which is a cost on the part of the hospital. But if this hospital is completed, we will be able to offer all these services,” he disclosed.
The construction of the hospital, which is funded by the Lake Tanganyika Development Project, started in 2017 and was expected to take a year.