Officials play down Bamalete Hospital �dire� financial woes
Innocent Selatlhwa | Thursday February 23, 2017 17:52
Mmegi is however reliably informed that at a meeting held last week, which Moagi denied was ever held, employees were told not to expect their salaries at the end of the month.
“We were called for a meeting and told that the government could not bail the hospital out and that we are likely not to get our salaries. In addition, there is no food for patients,” a source said.
Apparently, for some time now the employees have been getting their salaries late, as it meant the hospital authorities running around looking for a Good Samaritan to borrow money with which to pay the workers.
An insider said employees were told that their salaries had been paid late in January only after a businessman allegedly intervened and lent the hospital money for the salaries. “The situation is very bad and affecting our performance”, said the source.
“You cannot expect productivity from people you do not pay. The morale is low and that can never be good considering the nature of the work we are doing,” said the source.
The employees said this all started when the Germans declared that they could no longer support the hospital with money and recommended it be handed over to Government. For some reasons unknown to us the leadership refused to hand it over,” the source said.
But Mmitsi would have none of that saying it was not that worse, though, yes, they do have financial difficulties.
“Rather, I told them in a meeting held in January that their salaries would be delayed,” he said.
Mmitsi said Bamalete’s dependence on Government and the procedures involved in securing funding sometimes affect their operations. He denied there ever being any plan to transfer the hospital to Government.
The hospital deputy board chairman, Phenyo Segokgo said the current hiccup is natural to all hospitals, stating that they would ensure that workers are paid their dues at the end of the month.
He said there was delay of transferring funds for the last quarter of the financial year by the Government.