APNU+AFC spent more money on drugs in 5 years than PPP did in 23

Mar 20, 2021 News

…broken supply chain led to expiration of $10B worth in drugs, massive shortages

Some of the expired drugs purchased by the Ministry under the APNU+AFC administration

Kaieteur News – The A Partnership For National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration during its five years in Office, spent more money on the procurement of drugs and medical supplies than the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) expended during its 23 years in Office.
Compounding the situation is the fact that the previous administration’s broken supply system led to the expiration of more than $10B worth of medicines.
The damning allegations were laid out by former Minister of Health, Dr. Ramsammy, who in a recent missive, penned that “The present medicine and medical supply shortages is a consequence of a broken supply chain system that the present PPP Government inherited from the previous APNU+AFC Government.”
He disclosed that in August 2020, there was a greater than 80 percent shortage in the health sector.
Dr. Ramsammy has since credited the Irfaan Ali led administration with bringing down that rate to less than 55 percent in December 2020.
According to Dr. Ramsammy, “We expect to reduce this down to 0 to 5 percent by end of June 2021.” He did underscore that because of lengthy tendering and international procurement and the COVID-19-related shipping delays, “The stabilization period is lengthier than we had hoped.”
The former Health Minister under the PPP/C administration was adamant, “Let us be clear: even though the country expended more money between 2015 and 2020 ($35B) than it did the previous 23 years ($30B), the country suffered from chronic medicine shortages since 2015.”
He said “Single-sourcing of medicines and medical supplies were rampant, Guyana significantly overpaid for medicines, sometimes as much as three to five times the international reference price and Guyana had a record, scandalous and criminal expiry problem.”
According to Dr. Ramsammy, the PPP/C administration was forced to dump more than $1B worth of medicines and medical supplies when it took office.
“In spite of monthly disposal of expired medicines since then, the MMU (Materials Management Unit) continued to have mounting expired medicines and medical supplies.”
He disclosed too that two weeks ago, the Ministry of Health completed a total physical audit of the MMU and verified that more than 75 percent of the physical space within the MMU consisted of expired medicines and medical supplies.
“The MOH is actively disposing of these expired supplies, disposing of more than $1B so far. It is estimated that over the last five years, between $5B to $10B of expired medicines have been disposed of,” he said.
Compounding the situation, Dr. Ramsammy noted that “Even for those supplies that are still active, a significant amount is of very short shelf-life.”
He added further that additionally, “The modern warehouse management information system (MACS) was never kept up-to-date. This is the legacy of the previous APNU+AFC’s administration. Make no mistake; this scandalous situation is one that is criminal.”
Dr. Ramsammy noted too that “At this very moment, the MOH is in the process of disposing medicines and supplies worth billions of dollars, already disposing of more than $1B worth of medicines in the last week.”
According to Dr. Ramsammy, once these expired medicines are disposed of, the MMU at Diamond will be virtually empty.
Highlighting the state of affairs, Dr. Ramsammy noted that “At present, there is an emergency selective tender (10 selected suppliers) that has been evaluated and the MOH is awaiting an award to begin the procurement of a two-month supply of medicines and supplies.”
Additionally, “There are also two open tenders – one for a four-month supply and one for a further 10-month supply” and “We are hoping that with the rapid delivery from the two-month supply, we will attain some stability in the supply chain.”
He was adamant that while APNU+AFC almost exclusively single-sourced medicines, the PPP/C has not single-sourced essential medicines since it assumed office and that the present emergency procurement is a selective tender, with ten suppliers asked to bid.
The other tenders, he said, are all public.

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