President Peter Mutharika has warned stakeholders in the construction of the state-of-the-art National Cancer Centre not to give excuses that can affect timely completion of the project.
The project is scheduled to be completed within a period of 18 months and will be built with a loan of K5.4 billion from Opec Fund for International Development (Ofid).
Mutharika, who laid a foundation stone yesterday, near Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) said he expects the project to be completed within the stipulated time.
“Minister of Health, I want this completed within the one and half years and I will be coming here myself to check and make sure that there is progress on it. I want it done by that time,” he said
Currently, there are 14,000 people diagnosed with cancer and Mutharika said many are dying because of lack of immediate and quality cancer treatment
He further said the centre will help the government to minimise the cost of sending cancer patients abroad by at least 50 percent.
“For so long, we have been sending many people abroad like in India for radiotherapy treatment .The country cannot afford to facilitate everyone to [travel to] India. This centre once completed will cut the cost of sending such patients abroad,” he said
Minister of Health, Peter Kumpalume, said there are expectations that all stakeholders involved in the project will do everything possible to have the project completed in time.
Kumpalume said once completed, patients will be accessing free services.
Representative of Ofid, Khalid Alzayer commended the long-time relationship that exists between this country and Ofid in enhancing the development sector.
The construction project has delayed as it was initially scheduled to start in January 2016 but failed due to depreciation of kwacha.
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