Kim Jong-un is pictured outside the hospital in July last year

NORTH KOREA: KIM JONG UN 'HAS OFFICIAL EXECUTED FOR IMPORTING CHEAP CHINESE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT’

May 3, 2021:

North Korea has executed a party official after he defied Kim Jong-un in the hope of getting an empty showpiece hospital opened to patients, South Korea's Daily NK newspaper reported on 23 April 2021.
Kim personally broke ground on Pyongyang General Hospital in March last year, demanding that the facility be built in just over six months.
But his deadline came and went without a grand opening, amid rumours that the finished building was an empty shell, lacking basic medical equipment.
Now a party official has paid the ultimate price, after a workaround was proposed that clashed with Kim Jong-un's vision for the hospital.
Kim wanted the facility kitted out with medical equipment from Europe, according to Daily NK. 
But an alternative plan was made to use Chinese equipment instead – and the official was blamed when an 'outraged' Kim Jong-un found out.
The condemned man was a deputy director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was aged in his early 50s, and was responsible for importing and exporting.
An executive at the Ministry of Health was also dismissed, the newspaper said.
Kim Jong-un, who spent part of his boyhood in Switzerland, reportedly believes European-made equipment to be of the highest quality.
The party therefore allocated a large budget to furnish the hospital in line with his wishes.
But officials allegedly struggled to overcome European sanctions against North Korea and, due to the pandemic, also had difficulty bringing the items into neutral third countries.
It was then that a plan was made to use cheaper Chinese equipment that could be more easily imported.