Tanzanian minister orders spending of Sh700 million on Tumbi Hospital building

Kibaha. Deputy Minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government), Mr Selemani Jaffo, has directed the Kibaha Education Centre management to seek audience with the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) so as to decide on what to do with the unspent Sh700 million.

The money was released by the government last year to finance the construction of the Out Door Patient's (OPD) building at the Tumbi Referral Hospital in Kibaha District.

He made the directive on Tuesday after he inspected the project, whose construction started in 2009 and stopped in 2011 due to various reasons, one being shortage of funds.

Mr Jaffo said the money was issued to the office of RAS but nothing has been done so far.

“I want you to speed up the process and have the structure completed using the money,” she said, adding, “you have until next week to reach a decision.”

According to him, there is another amount that was allocated for the project in the 2017/18 budget but won’t be released until the first amount is spent.

For his part, the KEC acting head of estate and building, Mr Zacharia Mwinuka, said since the beginning of the project in 2009, they were receiving funds directly from the government but later the system changed.

“We heard that the money was channeled to the office of the RAS, we received the information in February, but it was not handed to us. But with the directives from the deputy minister I assure you that everything will be implemented on time,” he said.

KEC acting director general Robert Shilingi reiterated the pledge. “The meeting will be held soon as per the instructions,” he said.

Speaking in a telephone interview, Coast Region’s RAS Zuberi Samataba admitted his office to have received the money saying the delay was caused by lack of directives and agreements from the two sides on how best to release the money.

“I did acknowledge its receipt since last year but remained unused due to the lack of the joint agreements, our fellows from KEC have been urging that the money should be sent to their account contrary to the government’s directives,” he said.

Mr Samataba was optimistic that with the new development, his office and KEC would meet and sort out the challenge to the structure accomplished immediately.