Inept builders caused delays 22 hospitals delivered late, says Chua

Star: SIK: Incompetent building contractors have been blamed for delays in the completion of 22 government hospitals under the 8th Malaysia Plan.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said these hospitals were completed between a month and three years behind schedule.
Dr Chua said that to ensure delays would not recur, future hospital projects would only be offered to qualified contractors through tenders.
The ministry, he said, would from now on scrutinise the contractors bidding to undertake hospital projects under the 9MP.
“Building hospitals is not the same as building hotels or schools. It requires specialised skills,” he said after his first working visit to Sik Hospital yesterday.
Earlier, Dr Chua said the ministry had been allocated RM10.5bil under the 9MP to build new hospitals and to upgrade the infrastructure of existing hospitals in rural districts nationwide.
He said under the 9MP, the ministry also planned to consolidate health services by upgrading the infrastructure at rural hospitals in six zones – northern, central, southern, eastern, western and Sabah and Sarawak.
He said two new hospitals in Kedah – in Pendang, and a psychiatric hospital in Bandar Aman Jaya in Sungai Petani – would be built under the 9MP.