Chengetai Zvauya
Government could have been prejudiced of over US$600m after it bought faulty and obsolete equipment from India to improve service delivery at public hospitals, a senior medical officer told Parly on Monday.
The equipment was sourced by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. The funds was sourced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa as part of efforts to revive the collapsing heath sector.
Currently, the equipment is lying idle and obsolete in government hospitals.
This was revealed by the Senior Hospital Doctors Association president, Shingai Nyaguse, who presented oral evidence to the Parliamentary Health Portfolio Committee Monday.
Some of the obsolete equipment include ventilators, incubators and these were commissioned by President Mnangawa last year .
Nyaguse said the equipment was bought under the supervision of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo and his deputy John Mangwiro.
“….The consignment of goods purchased from India from funds directly sourced by his Excellency President Mnangagwa are incompatible. Some of which was obsolete, refurbished material and the equipment is not even working,” Nyaguse said.
Nyaguse said the procurement of obsolete equipment was a sign of “stinks of corruption”.
Mangwiro confirmed the procurement of absolute equipment.
He,however, defended the purchase saying the Indian technicians will come back to Zimbabwe with the correct equipment during the course of this year and will operate the machines.
” We went to India and bought the equipment but some of it is not working because of wrong specifications but some of it will be corrected this year and it shall work,” Mangwiro said.
The doctors said the lack of working equipment was one of the major reasons the medical doctors had started a strike.
The hospitals have been functioning well since March last year and things come to a standstill in the last four months of 2019.
