{"id":234408,"date":"2022-08-17T17:56:46","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T15:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/uganda-members-of-parliament-approve-shs266-billion-loan-for-heart-institute?lang=en"},"modified":"2022-08-17T17:56:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T15:56:46","slug":"uganda-members-of-parliament-approve-shs266-billion-loan-for-heart-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/uganda-members-of-parliament-approve-shs266-billion-loan-for-heart-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda: Members of Parliament approve Shs266 billion loan for heart institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Parliament<\/a>
Download logo<\/a>
<\/p>\n

Parliament has approved a US$70 million loan for the construction of a state of the art facility to house the Uganda Heart institute.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A loan request brought by government to collectively borrow US$70 million from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Saudi Fund for Development and the Opec Fund for International Development sailed through following unanimous approval from Members of Parliament.<\/p>\n

Parliament’s Committee on National Economy scrutinized the loan request and approved it with recommendations.<\/p>\n

“…the committee therefore, recommends that the request by government to borrow [up to $70 million] for the construction and equipping of the Uganda Heart Institute Project be approved subject to the recommendations herein,” said Committee Vice Chairperson, Hon. Robert Migadde.<\/p>\n

Migadde however, asked government to renegotiate the loan terms to ensure flexible payment terms.<\/p>\n

“The committee recommends that there is need for the Ministry of Finance to engage the financiers with a view of improving the financial terms to more concessional or semi concessional terms…in particular increasing the repayment period of the BADEA and OPEC proposed loans to20 years,” he said.<\/p>\n

Challenges facing the Uganda Heart Institute in the execution of its mandate, said Migadde, informed the approval of the loan.  <\/p>\n

“The committee recommends that going forward, government addresses the immediate constraints that is, inadequate working space and medical infrastructure in order to build a strong foundation for the Uganda Heart Institute for it to become a centre of excellence in cardiovascular medical services,” he said.<\/p>\n

Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa asked the Uganda Heart Institute to utilize the loan well and ensure the centre stands to serve the multitude of patients with heart problems.<\/p>\n

“We lose 500 children every year because they have the expertise but they don’t have the facilities to do it; you can save that Ugandan who cannot go to Kenya; the decision is yours,” he said adding that, ’this loan started in the 10th Parliament; one of the demands was their independent home where they will be able to take on and carry out sophisticated surgeries’.<\/p>\n

Hon. Lucy Akello (FDC, Amuru District) endorsed the loan as a journey to unburden families troubled by health care challenges.<\/p>\n

“Every money that we borrow must be put to good use; there are families that cannot even afford Shs50,000 . I hope when we have our own centre and, our people will not suffer,” she said.<\/p>\n

Kabale Municipality MP, Dr. Nicholas Kamara said the approval will come in handy given the growing statistics of people suffering from non-communicable diseases.<\/p>\n

“I have been to Uganda Heart Institute many times and I have seen the constraints; we are in a demographic transition where non-communicable diseases are accounting for more deaths,” he said<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: Africa Newsroom – APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo Parliament has approved a US$70 million loan for the construction of a state of the art facility to house the Uganda Heart institute. A loan request brought by government to collectively borrow US$70 million from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Saudi Fund for Development and the Opec Fund for International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-234408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/uganda-members-of-parliament-approve-shs266-billion-loan-for-heart-institute.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}