DA to intensify monitoring of GBV cases in Upington
| by Dr Isak Fritz, MPL – DA Northern Cape Spokesperson of Health |
| Date: 28 June 2020 |
| Release: Immediate |
| Eight years in the making, the Port Nolloth health facility could have played a meaningful role in the fight against Covid-19 in Namaqualand, if it was only finished. Instead, the facility remains incomplete, prompting the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape to submit parliamentary questions to the new MEC of Health, Maruping Lekwene, to determine the reasons for the ongoing delays.An oversight inspection to the facility this week, revealed that while the facility shows a little bit of progress since my last oversight inspection in October 2019, it is still a long way off from opening. See pics here, here and here.While I understand that lockdown threw a spanner in the works for all construction projects, the delay is not the result thereof. Construction had in fact ground to a halt just before lockdown, due to the non-payment of contractors.This is by no means the first time that the health department has held up projects due to its failure to efficiently process contractors’ invoices for varying reasons, including a lack of funds, inefficiencies and even mismanagement within the system. Regardless of the reasons for the hold up, they are unacceptable.The project commenced in April 2012 and was supposed to have been completed two years and four months later, in August 2014. Non-stop hindrances have plagued this project which is already six years past its original scheduled due date.The chronic delays have led to a massive escalation in costs and overspending on the projected budget. Given the fiscal difficulty which the country now finds itself in, this is a crisis in itself, as the reprioritisation of funds towards addressing the pandemic means that the department is likely to have less funds to complete and operationalise this facility.The health care system in Springbok has been nearing collapse long before the additional burden of the Coronavirus. It is therefore the people of Namaqualand, where health services were already severely strained before the Coronavirus pandemic, who will suffer the most.The DA will insist on answers about the ongoing delays in the completion of the long-awaited Community Health Centre in Port Nolloth, from MEC Lekwene.If this facility doesn’t get attention now, it will surely follow down the same path as the Kimberley Mental Health Hospital, that took a record 15 years and approximately R2 billion to complete. |
| Media Enquiries |
| Dr Isak Fritz, MPLDA Northern Cape Spokesperson of Health083 395 2737 Shelley de WittResearcher0828471387 |
Related posts