Friday, March 29, 2024

Ministry of Health comments on the alleged purchase of 50 ambulances at the cost of $288, 000 each

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The Ministry of Health has clarified that it is not procuring the much talked about ambulances at a cost of US$288, 000 each as claimed by some stakeholders.

Ministry of Health Spokesperson Dr. Maximillian Bweupe has told journalists that in fact the Ministry has not even finished paying for the said 50 units.

Dr. Bweupe has explained that in 2015, the ministry paid an initial 10 percent with a further 15% in 2016 , while the remaining 15 percent is yet to be settled.

He says the whole package will cost the ministry a total of US$11.5 million because the ambulances have advanced equipment as they are purpose built ambulances.

Dr. Bweupe says the procurement of the 50 ambulances was done in a transparent manner as the ZPPA was engaged before awarding the contract to Savenda Limited.

He has also clarified the units are not Toyota made as claimed in some sections of the media, but are Mercedes Benz.

Dr. Bweupe says because they are purpose built, there is an additional of US$4 million service charge.

63 COMMENTS

    • Too much chidyelo here in Zambia what is so special in this ambulance that it can come to more than $200? Fire engine $1million Why? And we are block no cash many of us

    • Toyota Land Cruiser ati $179,000??? 2 questions – 1. where did you get the money to buy at such prices and 2. what did you smoke

    • Do we really need a Mercedes Benz ambulance in Zambia? Come on now! This is silly. Not even here in America have I seen an ambulance by Mercedes Benz. Like others have said, do these people know the maintenance costs of a Benz….any Benz model?

      This is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? And the price sounds way too inflated even the ambulances are custome-made. What, are these ambulances mini-hospitals on wheels???

    • $11.5m minus $4m service charges leaves the cost of one unit at $150,000 per purpose built Mercedes Benz Ambulance you fools.

  1. Why are vehicle prices so exagerrated in Zambia? Of course there’s a difference between Toyota and Mercedes Benz but you do not have to get the first offer. Try other suppliers.

  2. What a country…do these guys know how much it costs to service a Mercedes brand vehicle…it’s not worth it for poor country like ZAMBIA. God please help us.

  3. So for as long as ZPPA approves, then the deal is ok? We have a real problem because we know that these institutions have very educated people. But politicians do not listen to them. Because if they used school to advise you, the chances of ukulyamo would be slim. We know that you know how to make correct decisions; but you go against that in order to maximise pilfering. May indigestion and lightening strike you this December.

  4. This is plain institutionalized criminality!
    No impeccable logic to equip ambulances when hospital they will serve lack basic equipment and medicine.
    Rather equip hospitals and get basic ambulances that are cost effective maintenance wise. There seems to be lack of cost and benefit analysis; if it’s there it’s obscure or meant to benefit the elite few at the expense of poor majority in which case these elite are just criminals; thugs masquerading as leaders.

  5. ZPPA must not be taken as a group of Angels. ZPPA should know that whenever you are acquiring machinery or vehicles, simple common sense demands that you consider the cost of maintenance. Who doesn’t know that Mercedes Benz is more expensive to both buy and maintain? Today people may be skillfully be stealing from the Zambian people but one thing they should know is that God does not sleep. You may tell us that everything went through the proper procedures but as leaders entrusted with our nation resources, is that the best way to use money when you fully know that we have various loans and bonds to service as a nation. God punish any evil acts and the actors in Jesus’ name.

  6. Even at personal level when theres need for a car in a family, you don’t go to acquire a car you can’t maintain. Your monthly income is what will determine the type of car you acquire. Our national income is always in deficit and you go approve first very expensive fire trucks and now ambulances when we can buy even good second hand vehicles. ZPPA management God will judge you. You may use grammar with the Zambian people but you can’t use grammar with God. The ministers incharge of these ministries wasting our money should know that when God’s judgment lands it goes upto the fourth generation. ACC and Auditor General must also get serious the fact that ZPPA okays a tender does not render it holy. Suppose corruption is at ZPPA?

  7. Zambia needs ambulances. What we need is to vet these PF ministers and their PSs. That is money that cannot just be thrown around.

  8. Twachula kwena yet there is no road between kafue and mazabuka. Sata never choose who to give development. I pity people of Sesheke. There is no road either from their town to Livingstone.

  9. How can anyone justify these purchases …a Mercedes and Ford chasis with a box on top is used by NHS in England; it does not cost that amount ..please stop stealing you lazy foools!!

  10. Wait wait… “10 percent with a further 15% in 2016 , while the remaining 15 percent is yet to be settled” – so the total price is 40%? Confusion iliko

    • I think that should have been 75?.You see this explains why government supply tenders are over priced. They take too long to pay. How do allow gvt to keep your 11 million dollars or less for 3 years. Even if you got a loan you still need to be paying back

  11. This topic has become interesting. I just did a Google search and found this.
    Begin Quote.
    EMS agencies typically replace their ambulances — which already cost about $150,000 unequipped — every five to seven years. Outfitting one can tack on $100,000 more, said Tom Izydore, director of Plum Emergency Medical Services, which is looking to buy an ambulance in the next 18 months.Apr 1, 2013
    End Quote.
    The majority of bloggers are well educated I believe, however, they lack intelligence in journalism investigation. After I read the report of Dr. Maximillian Bweupe, I was on fire wanting to write him a stinker. But I cautioned myself and decided to investigate or research the subject for facts. Based on what I have quoted, I am just like a dog with it’s tail between the legs. You make…

    • One article has made you put your tail between your legs? One article!

      If they who are mentioned in the article read the Zambian story they would think they genius!

      Zambia twapenga!

  12. Hospitals should take priority in the modernisation strategy instead. Ambulances taking patients to hospitals with zero chances of survival just because someone got the priority list upside down? Come on!!

  13. Has any one of you critiques ever been in a modern ambulance equipped with defibrator, phone, Hard case integrated laptop, oxygen facilities & all rescusitation equipment? Has any one of you been in a fatal road accident or your relative & no ambulance is available to evacuate them? Ok, just please guess how much a brand new multi purpose ambulance may cost? Or if you can’t, how much can a brand new canter cost? Not reconditioned coz some of you think reconditioned as new. Ubututu bane.

    • As one blogger above says , what is the use of all that equipment when the patient is being taken to an empty hospital with no medicine ?

    • Whats the use of a well equipped ambulance that will take you to a very unequipped public hospital? Lets be honest enough to agree that priorities are heavily misplaced.

    • Onry

      Defubulator, laptop, phone , blood pressure monitor all under $10k naimwe….you see flashing lights and you think it costs an arm and a leg ???

    • @Onry, I hope you do understand that in places like the U.S.A you are, or your insurance is, billed separately for ambulance services. And it is not cheap! So ambulance companies can afford such luxuaries in their vehicles. But do you really need such an ambulance in say, Shibuyunji? What for?

  14. King imbomba yours is probably the most inciteful comment,. These contracts for, essential like ambulances fire engines , dredges look more like conduits for siphoning money….. dr says we arent procuring them at a $288000 each ok the figure is 230000 each just semantics
    Can the doctor tell us at what exchange rate the contract was negotiated at .

  15. This culture is called “it’s our time to eat” and we Zambians entertain and hero worship it.

    We start by asking the Ministry why they dont procure specialised equipment directly from Manufacturers or Authorised Agents/dealers even if it means those domiciled internationally.

    There are many ZPPA approved forms of procurement in Zambia depending on Budget, availability of goods/works and suppliers/manufacturers. This being the so called specialised equipment with the much needed after sales service costing 4m USD calls for procurement of the Ambulances directly from Benz and not through an Open Tender where a company with no history or specific experience of supplying such equipment is awarded a contract. This said company does not even have facilities to offer after sale…

  16. Benz from Germany or South Africa or even through their Authorised dealers and most credible international Bidders would not have accept to sell their vehicles or equipment at inflated prices for the benefit of top officials behind this Scam while the local company gladly found it acceptable. Benz does not entertain fraud, collusion or any corrupt practices of any kind. This deal involves the Minister, Perm sec and officials from the procurement section of the Ministry and of course ZPPA themselves (The Director General). The crime ia not committed at award, it is committed at planning stage which involves the above mentioned.

    Infact the supplier is given Tender documents before they are made public and everything Doctored in his favour. Do we all think it was sheer luck laced with…

  17. Another great ripoff of Zambian coffers under the watch of lungu….

    Here is the cost of similar if more advanced ambulances…

    google.co.uk/amp/s/www.fleetnews.co.uk/amp/news/2014/3/5/mercedes-benz-dealer-orwell-truck-and-van-wins-15m-front-line-ambulance-order/49797/

    At £15 million for 147 units equates to $134 000.

    • If you include shipping and insurance this takes the price per unit to the $145 000 mark max.

      Some one is still making %85 profit on the Zambian tax payer…..the head of the Zambia procurement agency needs to be jailed.

  18. @Spaka like lila, let’s not be economical with numbers ( or is it truth?). Insurance and freight would be more like 60% or more, not the 7.4% you are using to support your fake calculations. Plus finance costs (especially if a letter of credit is used). What is wrong with debating matters truthfully you UPNDonkeys kanshi? Calculated ignorance perhaps?

    • Are you mad you Mr terrible or is it inbred corruption and stealing in you ? How can a one off insurance be almost the cost of buying one vehecheal ??

      If people paid 60% insurance for shipping no one will afford that…..

  19. Imagine being take to your death bed at a death trap UTH in this so called state of the art ambulance kkkkk? This money could go a long way in procuring state of the art medical equipment that could save lives at our hospitals and not this nonsense. Imagine a medical doctor is the chief architect of corruption with a lawyer at the helm? Where are we going to run to for sanity? The financial moral degradation we are seeing in this regime is unprecedented based on callousness devoid of empathy. PF supporters your dug your own grave now its time to sleep in it.

  20. @Spaka like lila, let’s not be economical with numbers ( or is it truth?). Insurance and freight would be more like 60% or more, not the 7.4% you are using to support your fake calculations. Plus finance costs (especially if a letter of credit is used). What is wrong with debating matters truthfully you under5 U.P.NDonkeys kanshi? Calculated ignorance perhaps?

    • Are you mad you Mr terrible or is it inbred corruption and stealing in you ? How can a one off insurance be almost the cost of buying one vehecheal ??

      If people paid 60% insurance for shipping no one will afford that…..

    • The problem arises when you see things through lenses of a theif…….with a theifs mindset.. …..mr terrible , shipping insurance is based on past claims , how many ships ferrying vehecheals destined for Zambia have been lost ? Zero.

  21. Imagine being take to your death bed at a death trap UTH in this so called state of the art ambulance kkkkk? This money could go a long way in procuring state of the art medical equipment that could save lives at our hospitals and not this nonsense. Imagine a medical doctor is the chief architect of corruption with a lawyer at the helm? Where are we going to run to for sanity? The financial moral degradation we are seeing in this regime is unprecedented based on callousness devoid of empathy. PF supporters your dug your own grave now its time to sleep in it. Vision-less has no capacity to fight corruption, he confessed the other day.

  22. Having been in emergency situations myself, I appreciate being rushed to what you call “empty hospital”. My life has has been saved. You can stop one of the ambulances you frequently find on the Great north road and ask the woman who is being rushed to UTH from Kabwe what she thinks of your comments on her emergency. While at it ask her where she will mark her X in 2021 in view of your comments as an under5 u.p.ndonkey.

    • Ask the woman being rushed to an empty hospital , who bythe way who has been taxed mercilessly who also knows generations after her will be paying for this debt, what she thinks when she wakes up in an empty hospital with no medications…..

  23. Traditionally marine insurance on freight is 0.5% to 1% of C&F value.. where are ambulances coming from but allow no more than 3-4000each maximum. Check how much freight is paid on similar vehicles out of japan,,, just look ar B.E.Forward.
    Terrible, terrible attempt to justify the apparent inflated figures

    • The problem with people like me terrible they think if it is GRZ paying, the money is from a bottomless pit ……mana from heaven….they don’t realise that generations of Zambians will suffer for this debt as long as they steal now…..

  24. “The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust has taken the first deliveries from an order for 147 new vehicles worth some £15 million. Based on 5.0-tonne Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 519 CDI chassis, and fitted with purpose-designed box bodies by German specialist WAS”
    This amounts to roughly £103,00 or $133,000 per each van. Just like the fire tender costs this transaction smells of corruption.

  25. Does this country want every procurement to be floated throughout the 10 provinces, hold sensitization meetings in all province, get consensus from all provinces, then write to ZPPA for authority to buy. Is that what we want? We are getting too much retrogressive and pure retards. Every procurement, even when you do not even have the specifications for the goods and services bought, is being subjected to alot of unnecessary distraction. Let this country develop and wait for your time to continue with the development. You wish someone birthday, but you say something else. Whats wrong with this country. Others are are just making noise without data. What is wrong with concluding a deal?

    • @miya it’s the duty of every government to provide the data you’re talking about. Just like the fire tenders issue the government is giving half baked answers thereby fueling speculations for wrong doing. These days you just Google and can tell when someone is bluffing. In a democracy people question everything and it’s good for transparency. Leaders must be accountable and prudent in the way our meagre resources are being used.

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