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The Guyanese people know this procurement isn’t right
DEAR EDITOR,
The APNU+AFC administration has been caught again, with its pants down. After more than a year of promises that there would be no sole-sourcing of medicines, it is now revealed that the Ministry of Public Health procured $367M (US$1.8M) worth of medicines through ugly orchestrated sole-sourcing. The medicines were brought as an emergency supply from a company, HDM Labs, with a NY address.
This company has no record of being a medicine supplier before and was established after May 2015. It has no medical warehouse, no cold-chain facility and it has no experience in medicine supply. Yet it miraculously met all the standards and requirements established by the Ministry.
It is noteworthy that the Ministry’s excuse for seeking a sole-sourcing for this significant amount of medicines is that the Ministry conducted a restrictive bidding among six companies – Ansa McAL, International Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA), Global Healthcare Supplies, Ic., Caribbean Medical Supplies, Meditron Inc., and HDM Labs.
The Ministry claimed that only HDM Labs fulfilled all requirements to submit a bid. This is remarkable for several reasons. First, the largest medicine supplier in Guyana, the New GPC, was omitted from the bidding. Why?
Secondly, since May 2015, the largest single medicine procurement contract ($605M in 2016) was given to Ansa McAL and since May 2015, Ansa McAL, IPA, Meditron have supplied medicines to the Ministry of Public Health and GPHC. This begs the question – what makes these companies ineligible suddenly? Something is amiss.
According to its letter to the National Procurement and Tender Board, the Ministry of Public Health conducted a restrictive tender for an emergency supply of medicines and this tender was opened on May 23, 2017. The six companies named above were invited to tender. None were qualified. Those companies in the restrictive tendering included HDM Labs. If none of these six companies were qualified, how suddenly did HDM Labs become qualified for sole-sourcing the medicines?
But then miraculously, HDM Labs was written to on June 16th to provide a quotation for more than $367M worth of medicines. The very next day, on June 17th, the Ministry wrote to the National Procurement and Tender Board for approval to sole-source the medicines from HDM Labs.
We have to assume that HDM Labs, a company with no experience and no history of being a medicine supplier, was able to immediately provide a quotation and a supply date for a complicated list of medicines. This stretches credibility, even for experienced suppliers. On June 19th, the Ministry informed HDM Labs that they were approved to supply the medicines. The evaluation process, on May 23, which disqualified all the selected companies including HDM Labs, and the subsequent fast fast-tracking to award a contract raise grave suspicions.
Someone must also explain why it was necessary to provide a 100% advance payment to this supplier.
The Auditor General must immediately audit this procurement to ensure that all the medicines were supplied and in keeping with the contract requirement of two weeks, and that the supplier provided medicines that met all standards.
I can ask where SOCU is, but I know I am wasting my time. But where in heavens name is the Public Procurement Commission? The Public Procurement Commission (PPC) is abrogating its responsibility of being a watchdog for public procurement. After its big splash at the commencement of their work in late 2016 when it committed to scrutinize all public procurement contracts and promised to hold public officials accountable, without fear or favour, the Public Procurement Commission has vanished. Will it examine this case? Who will examine this case?
Whether SOCU, the PPC or the Auditor General scrutinize this case or not, the Guyanese people know that this procurement is not what it is supposed to be.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
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