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Auxilia Katongomara, Chronicle Reporter
GOVERNMENT has asked potential investors interested in partnering it in the Ekusileni Hospital project to submit their proposals indicating how they intend to run the institution.

Nine prospective investors have been shortlisted to take over Ekusileni Hospital.

Matabeleland North provincial medical director Dr Nyasha Masuku who chairs the committee tasked to work towards re-opening the institution, said they were sending the ‘request for proposal document’ to potential investors who met the requirements.

“We are in the process of sending a request for proposal to those shortlisted investors so that they indicate how they intend to run the hospital.

The submitted proposals which are like a bid, will then be used for adjudication guided by the State Procurement Board regulations and the Joint Venture Partnership mandate,” said Dr Masuka.

He said the committee was working hard to ensure that the process goes on smoothly.

“This is what I have been trying to explain to people so that they appreciate that this has never been done before. It’s a process that involves multiple stages of doing things,” he said.

Dr Masuku said potential investors would go for interviews afterwards.

“So when they submit those proposals they would be interviewed one by one to explain how they are going to do it. If they have done it before they can demonstrate through other reports.

Once it’s done it would go for final adjudication process with the investment committee and it might even go to Cabinet because these are Joint Venture partnerships,” said Dr Masuka.

The process follows the Ministry of Health and Child Care decision last year to constitute a committee chaired by Dr Masuka tasked to identify a partner to enable the hospital to open to the public.

The hospital was built in 2001, operated for a few months and was subsequently shut down after it was discovered that the acquired equipment, worth millions of dollars, was obsolete. — @AuxiliaK