Financial woes that have become a permanent feature for almost all ministries and departments have not spared government parastatal Malawi College of Health Sciences (MCHS).<\/p>\n
Latest revelations indicate that the institution has on two occasions postponed and shifted the school opening for approximately 1,000 govt sponsored students due government\u2019s in ability to pay tuition fees in time.<\/p>\n
A communication posted on the institution\u2019s website and school notice boards that we have seen, indicate that the learners closed their semester on May 2, 2016 and were supposed to report at the Lilongwe Campus on June 13, 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll students of Lilongwe Campus who are currently on holiday are being informed about further change of opening dates from 27th June 2016 as communicated earlier to 4th July 2016,\u201d reads the communication.<\/p>\n
However, in another communication dated June 24, 2016 signed by MCHS Executive Director, Tannach Masache, which we also have seen, the institution has rescheduled the opening to July 3 due to delayed tuition fees payment by the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe extension has been caused because there has been a delay in the Ministry of Health paying student fees,\u201d reads the communication that has been copied to other MCHS branches in Blantyre and Zomba.<\/p>\n
Confirming the development,Masache downplayed the shift in the opening dates attributing it to end of financial year hitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Accountant General was supposed to close books since it is the close of the financial year so we did not get their fees on time so we extended the holiday,\u201dhe said adding that the affected are first year students only.<\/p>\n
Masache, however, could not say how much money government owed the institution.<\/p>\n
Among those affected are certificate in clinical medicine students, biomedicine students, environmental health students, all diploma year one learners, mature and upgrading students, anaesthesia mature students and those pursuing certificate in pharmacy.<\/p>\n
Ministry of Finance Spokesperson, Nations Msowoya, referred the matter to Adrian Chikumbe, his counterpart in the Ministry of Health who was not available for comment.<\/p>\n
But Minister of Health, Peter Kumpalume, expressed ignorance on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not received any communication on the situation and I assume that all is well,\u201d said Kumpalume referring the matter to ministry principal secretary who is reportedly out of the country.<\/p>\n
Inside information indicates that water was recently disconnected at MCHS Lilongwe campus, forcing learners to access water from a nearby health facility.<\/p>\n
While confining the water disconnection Masache said the institution was only part of a mass water disconnection by Lilongwe Water Board that affected most government institutions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Financial woes that have become a permanent feature for almost all ministries and departments have not spared government parastatal Malawi College of Health Sciences (MCHS). Latest revelations indicate that the institution has on two occasions postponed and shifted the school opening for approximately 1,000 govt sponsored students due government\u2019s in ability to pay tuition fees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27103,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27098\/revisions\/27103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}