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The Gaddafi hospital project at Kameza in Blantyre, which was supposed to take off immediately after harvest, has not yet started and both government and the Libyan Embassy failed to raise hopes on it on Thursday.
Secretary for Health Richard Pendame confirmed the project has not yet started but said government is still following up on the issue.
“We are not 100 percent sure as to when the project will start,” he said.
First Secretary to the Libyan Embassy Mewlud Ghemour said he did not have information on the project
“I don’t have information and when I have any I will inform you,” he said.
The district hospital was pledged to Malawi in July 2002 by the Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi during a high-profile state visit during which an impromptu national holiday was declared.
A foundation stone was laid at the proposed site on April 14 this year and a representative of the Libyan government promised that the hospital work would start as soon as people harvest their crop the just ended season.
The land is now being cleared for the next cropping.
The 300-bed hospital was expected to cover 8,000 square metres, estimated to cost K1.5 billion and scheduled for completion in 19 months.
The Ministry of Health is on record to have said during the laying of the foundation stone at the site that logistical as well as the construction of the hospital would be done by the Libyan government.
Libyan construction company African Project Authority (APA), which was available in April for 20 days to asses the land, said the work would be done in phases.
In February this year, the Libyan Embassy dismissed a pledge of 100 tractors and 2,900 houses as a joke between a deputy minister of Agriculture from Malawi and an official of a tractor manufacturing company in Libya in 2000.
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