Local News
MPs to visit Kimberley Mental Health Hospital soon─── 07:48 Tue, 30 Jun 2015
Kimberley - Members of the National Council of Provinces’ Social Services Committee will pay an oversight visit to the construction site of the Kimberley Mental Health Hospital soon.
This after a delegation of the Northern Cape Health Department appeared before the Committee last week to report on the progress made on the decade long construction of the hospital, among other things.
The delegation indicated that the first contractor that was appointed to start the project in 2005 completed 50% of the work at a cost of R458 million. According to the department the design and work was so bad that it had to replace the contractor. The replacement contractor did not have sufficient staff and completed only 15% of the work. It could not reach its January 2014 deadline for completion and got an extension to last month. The hospital is, however, still not complete and a new deadline for completion has now been set for the end of next year.
Meanwhile the department has spent a total of R900 million, and will have spent about R1.2 billion once the project is completed.
The committee said a full scale investigation might be necessary.
Cathy Dlodlo/OFM News
