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Kudzaishe Chinyandura Herald Reporter
Construction of a state-of-the art national pharmaceutical warehouse for the National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) in Harare is expected to start soon following the completion of preliminary ground work by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria.

In an interview with The Herald on the sidelines of a fact finding tour by members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care on Tuesday, NatPharm’s managing director Mrs Flora Sifeku said funding from the Global Fund enabled land clearing, construction of a sewer point and electricity installation, which was a prerequisite by the Chinese Government before they commence erection of buildings.

“This was a requirement of the Chinese Government. They said that we should do the land preparation and they will come and do the actual construction,” said Mrs Sifeku. She said the Chinese Government had since appointed a contractor and construction supervisor who were going to present a design to the Ministry of Health and Child Care. “They (Chinese Government) has since written to the Ministry of Health and Child Care advising it on the contractor and construction supervisor who are set to meet it (the Ministry) with their design and to discuss how they are going to carry out the construction activities,” said Mrs Sifeku.

She said the contractor had indicated that construction would take at least 18 months to complete.

Once complete, the state-of- the-art warehouse was expected to accommodate 22 000 pallets of medicines. The existing structure could only accommodate nine pallets of medicines. NatPharm said the new warehouse would make recording, storage and stock taking easy as everything would be computerised.