(MENAFN- Jordan Times) Although most of the thousands of Libyans who crowded the Kingdom's hospitals and hotels over the past year have left, representatives of these sectors say they are still waiting on the Libyan government to pay their bills.
Fawzi Hammouri, head of Private Hospitals Association (PHA), said the Libyan authorities still owe Jordanian hospitals around JD55 million of the JD140 million cost of treating more than 60,000 Libyan patients in the aftermath of the North African country's revolution last year.
According to Hammouri, the process of paying the money has taken a long time, and "it is still not clear when they are going to finalise this financial issue."
"Some hospitals have financial problems because of this," he added, with many lacking the cash to replenish their stores of medical supplies.
The PHA president said the association had asked Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh to contact the Libyan government in this regard but has not received a reply from the premier.
The Libyan committees in Jordan have hired a company to audit the bills, he explained, "and this will prolong the payment process further".
Meanwhile, the Kingdom's hotels are also waiting on around JD20 million that the Libyan authorities owe them for hosting these patients while they received treatment in Jordan.
"Sometimes they are cooperative, and sometimes they disappear and we lose contact with them," Yasar Majali, executive director of the Jordan Hotels Association (JHA), told The Jordan Times on Sunday, referring to representatives of the Libyan committees in Jordan.
Despite several attempts by The Jordan Times to contact representatives of the Libyan Medical Committee in Jordan, they were unavailable for comment.
Last Monday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted Ali Bin Jalil, head of the Libyan Patients' Affairs Committee, as saying Libya would pay its outstanding financial dues to Jordan's private hospitals once stability was restored in his country.
At a meeting with representatives of the JHA and the Scope Health Insurance Management Co., Jalil did not specify when the payment would be made, but said it would be after the recently elected General National Congress convenes.
The congress is expected to convene on August 6.
He also said that Libya had paid around $230 million of its dues to the Kingdom's hospitals and hotels.
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