KAMPALA – The Permanent Secretary, Minister of Health, Diana Atwine has revealed that the investors behind Finasi Construction, a company contracted to construct the international specialized hospital is threatening to personally sue her if she doesn’t approve the Chinese firm as new subcontractors.
Atwine made the shocking revelation Wednesday, July 25, while interfacing with lawmakers on the Parliamentary National Committee where the Ministry of Health had been summoned to explain the controversies surrounding the construction of the hospital.
Atwine said that she received a letter from Finasi threatening to penalise me personally because of her refusal to approve the Chinese as subcontractor, threats she refused to adhere to, “I told them, they must give me the due diligence report, report to show they had resolution and registered by registrar of companies also prove that this person had done a hospital of this magnitude and they give me scope of works they are going to do.”
Atwine added, I wrote saying I can’t approve blanket the scope and tell me who is going to do the other scope because it isn’t clear. I said I received the response from Attorney General but I will not approve until you have given me what I want.”
The Permanent Secretary also told the Committee that Francis Wakabi, the engineer preferred by Finasi Construction and rejected by Parliament has declined to hand over the project to the engineers at the Ministry of Health, saying his contract has just started and he has no plans of handing over to Government engineers.
However, Atwine has vowed to eject Wakabi remarking, “I will make sure I put my foot down, I will not accept just one person to supervise because this is a huge project, a strategic project and we will not allow this kind of manipulation.”
She said that the two parties had agreed that because Wakabi knew the project from the start and feared that the bankers would have issues as per signing the contract, the two parties agreed to give Wakabi six months for the transition so people get to know the project.
“In six months, these people haven’t received the handover report even when I wrote to Wakabi to handover, instead he has written a long document objecting and he said for him as far as he knows, his project starts as soon as the project started that is 10th June therefore, he still has six more months, therefore he will not handover to the new team,” said Atwine.
