Enga Hospital construction facing lack of funding from govt

BY JEFFREY ELAPA
THE construction of the US$159.6m (K600m) Enga Hospital is in danger of being halted if the national government will not honour its commitment with its counterpart funding, it has been revealed.
The vice-general manager of Guangdong Foreign Construction Company Ltd Xizoshe Lu said the company had being using its funds to make sure the project was continuing, although there was no funding coming from the Chinese Exim Bank because the Government was not paying its share of the funding.
Guangdong Foreign Construction Company Ltd (GDFC) is the company that built the six-storey University of Goroka student apartments.
Lu said the Chinese Exim Bank could only release funds for the project when the national government released its funding of 15 per cent.
During a recent visit to the construction site near Wabag town, Lu said the US$159.6 million Enga hospital was funded through the China Exim Bank in 2018.
The construction started in 2019 after the contract was awarded in 2018.
He said through the loan, it was agreed that 85 per cent of the funding would be funded by the Exim Bank of China while the remaining 15 per cent was to be paid by the Government of PNG.
The construction of the hospital started in early 2019 and within seven months, about a third of progress was made on the foundation work.
Lu said the soil was not good for construction but they wasted more time trying to bag fillings with volcanic rocks to make it as deep as 10 metres.
He said the hospital would be built with brick and steel.
Lu said they were paid less than 30 per cent and what the company, GDFC, paid was more and they could not continue when funding was not coming.
He said the first payment was supposed to be made in May 2018 but nothing had been received.
They said so far GDFC did not receive any payment and they might be forced to stop work as they could not continue to operate with credit as the company had been using its own funds.