Hospital’s financial report not received

National

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
The Wewak General Hospital Board in East Sepik has not provided it financial report for about K30 million they received since 2012, Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari  says.
Lupari said that every year since 2012 the Government had given K10 million to the hospital in Boram and the board had not given one plan of how the money was  spent.
“Unlike the Port Moresby General Hospital, they are getting the money and doing work as we receive reports of how the board spends monies that we have allocated,” Lupari said.
“It”s not that the Government is not providing the money. I think it goes back to us to being responsible  how we manage the funds.”
Lupari said this was a tough year for the Government. “When we did the 2016 national budget in 2015, we were expecting certain commodity prices to rise. I think world price for oil was at US$54 (K168) per barrel and now it has come to US$40 (K124),” he said.
“So it is really affecting the budget in terms of cash flow as well as revenue. So part of that was to re-adjust our economy.
“The budget was cut down by K2 billion. many of the departments were affected. Because the money was not coming in, that’s where warrants were not released on timely basis. Warrant is just paper. Warrant can be release but no cash. That’s why cheques were bouncing everywhere for service providers.”
Health Department’s corporate director Paul Dopsie said  they had not received l60 per cent of their warrants and the year was almost over.
“We are sitting on a time bomb. Most of the church-run facilities throughout the country are closing up. We have been stressed to our limit,” Dopsie said.
He said that they had K50 million in debt and owed suppliers and distributors of medicines in the country. “We have submitted our request to Vulupindi Haus that we can pay for these outstanding bills.”