{"id":3577,"date":"2021-09-24T11:19:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T11:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance"},"modified":"2021-09-24T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T11:54:10","slug":"tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance","title":{"rendered":"T\u0161epong departure held in abeyance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Lesotho<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Following the earlier reports that T\u0161epong Consortium, a company that runs the country\u2019s referral hospital, Queen \u2018Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) had vacated the premises, the said departure<\/p>\n

did not see the light of the day. This is owing to some ongoing talks between the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the group. The Minister of Health Hon. Semano Sekatle said they are now in transition period where they are working<\/p>\n

on modalities for the handover and the takeover. The Minister said the group is set to make the exit at the hospital later on August 31. It is expected that<\/p>\n

the government will take over after this date. The government had in 2011 entered into 18 years Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement with the T\u0161epong Consortium to run the QMMH.<\/p>\n

T\u0161epong Pty (Ltd) is a consortium of five companies that runs Lesotho\u2019s referral Queen \u2018Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) and its shareholding comprise Netcare, which<\/p>\n

holds a 40% stake within the consortium while the remaining 60% shareholding is held by Afrinnai Health (Pty) Ltd 20% \u2013 South African based company, and the<\/p>\n

local companies comprising of; Excel Health Services (Pty) Ltd with 20% shareholding, D10 Investments (Pty) Ltd (D10) which has 10% shareholding, and Women Investment Company (Pty) Ltd (WIC) with 10% stake.<\/p>\n

Last week Thursday, the QMMH Public Relations Officer (PRO), Thakane Mapeshoane told Informative Newspaper that the government is taking over the operations of the<\/p>\n

hospital effective from Thursday last week. She said the T\u0161epong management has taken off their names, policies and the standard operation procedure (SOP) \u2013 a guiding tool detailing the working procedure.<\/p>\n

Mapeshoane also highlighted that the July and August salaries will be paid by T\u0161epong Pty (Ltd). Despite enjoying a long strained relationship from the \u201cinception\u201d of the Public Private<\/p>\n

Partnership (PPP) agreement between T\u0161epong Consortium and the government, the final straw that broke the camel\u2019s back was when the group fired its 265 nurses<\/p>\n

and nursing assistants following the prolonged strike earlier this year over the salaries increment. The nurses had embarked over a 40 days industrial action where they had petitioned it to have<\/p>\n

their salaries reviewed, during which time they had downed tools. The group had previously reviewed its staff salaries in 2012; the action which prompted the<\/p>\n

nurses to engage in industrial action. The government had since absorbed all the fired nurses effective from May 1. The other complaint that the former T\u0161epong nurses said they felt hard done by was that they felt<\/p>\n

aggrieved by the arrangement that they will have to mentor the Ministry of Health (MoH) nurses who are deployed at QMMH to treat the COVID-19 patients.<\/p>\n

They had argued that the move was unfair on their part, as they were to do skills transfer to the people whose salaries surpass theirs. The Lesotho Nurses<\/p>\n

Association (LNA) has said that their members deem this move as \u201cunfair\u201d. \u201cThe situation was aggravated from the 18th January 2021 when T\u0161epong Management<\/p>\n

informed Nurses and Nursing Assistants that T\u0161epong will be another center where Covid-19 confirmed cases will be managed. Additionally, [the] Ministry of Health will deploy nurses and nursing<\/p>\n

assistants to assist in managing the cases and T\u0161epong staff will be allocated to capacitate them (skills sharing),\u201d reads the LNA\u2019s letter. The letter had<\/p>\n

furthered that it is unfair to receive salary far less than what their colleagues are getting yet they are working in a tertiary hospital where all complicated services across the country are referred to\u201d.<\/p>\n

On March 24, the Netcare Hospital Group (Pty) Ltd, a majority shareholder of T\u0161epong Consortium, issued a heavily worded statement following the government\u2019s announcement to PPP contract.<\/p>\n

It had accused the government of among others, the delay of payments which the group said affect the salaries of their staff and their operations. \u201cT\u0161epong is a thinly capitalised entity<\/p>\n

without access to working capital, and therefore unable to meet financial obligations when monthly payments by GoL [Government of Lesotho] are delayed.<\/p>\n

During these prolonged periods of non-payment \u2013 sometimes up to five consecutive months \u2013 Netcare provided the interest-free bridge funding to sustain the financial position of T\u0161epong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile T\u0161epong has been trading solvently, T\u0161epong\u2019s ability to declare dividends and maintain liquidity has been severely<\/p>\n

constrained by the poor payment history by GoL and poor support, by some members of the T\u0161epong board, to act in the interest of the company and take action to collect fees owing by GoL,\u201d says Dr Chris Smith, the Finance General<\/p>\n

Manager at Netcare. Despite the PPP contract touted as the best move elsewhere, the Oxfam report poked the holes into the arrangement saying it was not financially viable for the government on<\/p>\n

a sustainable basis. The report reads: \u201cThe Queen \u2018Mamohato Memorial Hospital was built to replace Lesotho\u2019s old main public hospital under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) \u2013 the first of its<\/p>\n

kind in a low-income country. The PPP signed in 2009 was described as opening a new era for private sector involvement in healthcare in Africa, and was seen as<\/p>\n

the International Finance Corporation (IFC)\u2019s flagship model to be replicated across the continent. Instead, the Ministry of Health in one of the poorest and<\/p>\n

most unequal country in the world is locked into an 18-year contract that is already using more than half of its health budget (51 per cent), while providing high returns (25 per cent) to the private partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a dangerous diversion of scarce public funds from primary healthcare services in rural<\/p>\n

areas, where three-quarters of the population live. Lesotho\u2019s experience supports international evidence that health PPPs of this kind are high risk and costly, and fail to advance the goal of universal and equitable health coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Following the earlier reports that T\u0161epong Consortium, a company that runs the country\u2019s referral hospital, Queen \u2018Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) had vacated the premises, the said departure did not see the light of the day. This is owing to some ongoing talks between the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the group. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8,16],"tags":[638,233,246,245,639],"class_list":["post-3577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-abeyance","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-tsepong"],"yoast_head":"\nT\u0161epong departure held in abeyance - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Following the earlier reports that T\u0161epong Consortium, a company that runs the country\u2019s referral hospital, Queen \u2018Mamoh ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"T\u0161epong departure held in abeyance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following the earlier reports that T\u0161epong Consortium, a company that runs the country\u2019s referral hospital, Queen \u2018Mamoh ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-24T11:19:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-24T11:54:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/09\/img-614dbc43182c9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"403\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"T\u0161epong departure held in abeyance\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-24T11:19:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-09-24T11:54:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\"},\"wordCount\":958,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/09\/img-614dbc43182c9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"abeyance\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"T\u0161epong\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepong-departure-held-in-abeyance\",\"name\":\"T\u0161epong departure held in abeyance - 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