The US$69 million WB health project will be delayed until June 2025

2024-06-06 07:35:00, Ekonomi CNA

The US$69 million WB health project will be delayed until June 2025

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The Health System Improvement Project supported by the World Bank with a total loan of 69 million dollars will be postponed for the fourth time in the term, already anticipating that the new closing deadline will not be December 31 of this year but June 30 of next year.

A restructuring document published by the World Bank shows the progress so far of the two loans that are part of this project as well as the items that still remain to be finalized and that make revision necessary.

“Thus the proposed extension of the closing date from 31 December 2024 to 30 June 2025 will provide an opportunity to improve the overall progress of implementation. With this extension, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection will be able to immediately sign the 3.57 million euro contract for the "Supply and Installation of the Regional Hospital Information System (RHIS)" that will be completed in May 2025.

Also, planned civil works have started at three hospitals and are expected to be completed, with equipment delivered and installed by the revised closure date. Specifically, the rehabilitation of the Hospital of Kruja (2.99 million euros) and that of Lezha (2.15 million euros) are ongoing and are expected to be completed by December 30, 2024, while the rehabilitation of the Hospital of the Department of Cardiac Surgery (4.52 million euros) will be completed. until April 2025.

In addition, the Bank and the Ministry have agreed to intensive joint monitoring of implementation at the highest levels to ensure that there is no oversight in any of the remaining loan-financed activities," the document states.

Currently, according to the data made public in the restructuring report, 2.29 million USD have been disbursed from the first loan and 27.07 million USD still remain, while 30.35 million USD have been disbursed from the second loan and 6.29 million USD still remain undisbursed.

The Project for the Improvement of the Health System in Albania was approved on February 27, 2015. It includes a value of 32.1 million euros Original Loan (equivalent to 40 million USD), which came into force on 28 August 2015. A 25 million euros (29, 5 USD) million equivalent) Additional Financing (AF) Loan was approved on December 1, 2021 and became effective on July 22, 2022.

The revised project development objective (PDO) is to contribute to the modernization of selected public hospital services and to support the reconstruction of selected medical facilities damaged by the 2019 earthquake./ Monitor Magazine