Total debt figure for Health Ministry not even known: Minister

Minister of Health Dr Jamsheed has said that the debt amount for the Ministry of Health is unknown, due to negligence in bookkeeping.

Speaking at a press conference at Velaanaage today, Jamsheed said that when he took over, some other Ministries hesitated even to transact with Health Ministry. The reason for this was that Health Ministry had failed to repay loans, and did not even have proper record of how much money it owed others.

“Honestly speaking, we still do not know how much our total debt is, or the total amount of unpaid bills we have. Perhaps I should be ashamed to say that we don’t know, but we really do not know the amount,” he said.

He said that some hospitals have suffered power cuts due to unpaid electricity bills, and that Health Ministry was on Immigration Department’s blacklist for failure to pay visa fees of foreign employees working at Health Corporations. Companies have refused to carry out renovation work at hospitals in islands due to unpaid bills for services provided on previous occasions.

He said that records show that the Ministry’s debts were between Rf600m and Rf800m, of which about Rf202m has been paid off, and that about 80 percent of the debts of all atoll hospitals, with the exception of two, have been paid.

He added that several issues have been resolved since he took over the Ministry; however, it would be impossible to set everything right within just three months, and that it is an achievement to have paid off a big portion of the debt during the current difficult financial times.