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Coalition Yellow Fever vaccine purchase records missing-PAC hears
Kaieteur News – Heads of the Public Health Ministry under the previous A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition government, came under heavy criticism by members of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over failure to account for records in a 2016 yellow fever vaccine programme.
Minister of Public Works and PAC member, Juan Edghill.
During a hearing of the PAC on Monday, reference was made to the Auditor General (AG)’s Annual Report of 2016, where 9,890 yellow fever vaccines were issued to vaccination centres under the Ministry of Public Health but the records only reflected 5,730 vaccines were received.
A total 4,160 vaccines could not be accounted for. The AG report noted too that $6.1 million were received from the sale of 7,729 yellow fever vaccines in 2016, but the ministry’s Materials Management Unit (MMU) Kingston had no documentation. The report reflected too, no records found at the vaccination centre and the accounts department of the ministry.
Minister of Public Works and PAC member, Juan Edghill was particularly vocal in his criticism of the committee that was responsible for managing the vaccine programme. He lamented the fact that over 9,000 yellow fever vaccines were bought in 2016 but there was no accountability.
Edghill said: “These are revenue-procured items; they left a bond in which they were to be stored and controlled by the storage regulations. I believe those regulations were not in place. Vaccines left. They were not adequately recorded. As such, you can’t say exactly where they went, who collected them and what happened. These things have to be monitored meticulously. How are vaccines leaving cold storage and they aren’t signed for? That’s the issue.”
Additionally, he noted that the AG report did not verify whether the vaccines sold were from the 2016 acquisitions, as the batch numbers were not recorded on the invoices.
As such, committee member and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, noted failure to record the batch numbers of vaccines may have been potentially damaging to the health of public. Teixeira explained that apart from accountability, there is the danger of distributing drugs that are expired or on the brink of expiry.
The minister chided the then authorities in the health ministry for selling the yellow fever vaccines. “There was terrible management and waste of taxpayers’ money,” she said. The missing records related to the yellow fever vaccine programme was not the only matter before the PAC in which documentation were missing. Moments before the discrepancy of the vaccine programme was brought to the attention of the committee officials, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, was facing queries about the missing records for a $1.8B paid to BK Contracting firm as part of a settlement in a dispute the company had with the coalition after working on the Haags Bosch landfill development project.
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