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Ekusileni Medical Centre in Bulawayo

Clemence Manyukwe News Editor
PARLIAMENT has said medical practitioners led by Dr Daud Dube who initiated the Ekusileni Medical Centre (EMC) project have no claim to the institution as they failed to honour agreements to develop it, leaving NSSA as the sole owner.The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in a recent report, recommended that the Bulawayo medical centre should be put to tender to pave way for players with capacity to operationalise it and ensure that NSSA realises returns from the investment as the Zimbabwe Health Care Trust (ZHCT) failed to provide a single cent for the project as initially agreed.  Dr Dube and his team owe NSSA $4 million.

The EMC was initiated as a joint venture between ZHCT and NETCARE while NSSA and the Mining Industry Pension Fund (MIPF) became partners after providing funds for the development.

The 200-bed medical centre was built in 2000 in honour of the late Vice-President Dr Joshua Nkomo.

The PAC, following hearings into the matter said NSSA provided all the funding for the project in a development that saw the MIPF pulling out, the same route that lawmakers said the doctors should take.

The committee said the medical practitioners under Dr Dube once approached NSSA indicating that they had the capacity to operationalise the health institution and wanted to operate on a lease agreement.

According to the committee’s report, the doctors purchased second hand equipment from overseas and NSSA handed over keys to them, but the imported health equipment was later condemned as substandard by the then Ministry of Health and Child Welfare now Health and Child Care.

“The doctors owed NSSA $4.2 million in rental arrears and were refusing to surrender keys to NSSA citing security for their equipment. NSSA eventually got the keys after a protracted dispute. NSSA had since handed over the matter to the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare for the way forward on the matter. In the committee’s view, NSSA made an unwise decision by investing into the construction of the medical centre where no title deeds had been provided,” reads part of the report.

“However, the fact that Dr Dube and his team failed to meet the obligations under the agreement, renders such an agreement immaterial. On the basis of the facts presented, the Ekusileni Medical Centre belongs to NSSA. Dr Dube and team should vacate the building and pave way for other players with capacity.”

The report said there was need for the matter to be resolved as a matter of urgency in order for NSSA to realise returns on the investment.

However, in May this year, while giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care, ZHCT founding trustee Dr Dube said they still had a share in the centre.

“The contribution in financial terms to the current shell was from NSSA and the building is now 75 percent complete, this was just financial contribution. The rest of the contributions going forward were from us,” said Dr Dube.

“The building went to a certain stage where we are taking it from now. NSSA partly paid the money that put up that structure. We did the designs. We did the supervisions and we were the promoters of the project.”

Recently, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said his ministry would want the Ekusileni Medical Centre to be operational and be run as a specialist hospital.

He added that the centre as well as Mpilo, United Bulawayo Hospitals and Mater Dei are within six kilometres radius of each other and all of them are doing the same work, hence the need for EMC to be a specialist hospital in a specific field such as cardiology, orthopaedics or cancer treatment.