THE National Referral Hospital will be relocated to Gilbert Camp in East Honiara from its current Number Nine location in Central Honiara.

The new site is on higher grounds while its current location is on the shoreline and is prone to natural disasters.

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services has yet to announce when work on building the new National Referral Hospital will start.

But the Ministry in a paid advertisement in the two daily newspapers says the new National Referral Hospital will be built near the Japanese Monument, adding it is now calling for tenders from contractors to build a fence around the site.

And it is also calling for tenders from signboard writers to erect signboards.

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services says work on the construction of the fence and the erection of the signboards will start in August and will be expected to finish in September.

But it has not indicated the actual dates when construction and erection works will start and when they will finish.

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services says tenderers must be duly registered companies under State laws, have Tax Identification Numbers issued by the Internal Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury.

It adds they must not be subject to ‘Blacklisting’ or ‘Restrictions’ to eligibility to take part in Solomon Islands Government tenders issued by any of its watchdog committees.

The Ministry says a pre-tender briefing will be held at its headquarters on Wednesday morning with tenders closing on Thursday June 29.

By George Atkin

Research Officer (Media Liaison) Caucus for GCU, PMOC