PAC grills Region three officials over purchase of drug supplies

May 07, 2022 News

– Finds $4.1M in vouchers could not be traced to goods received

Kaieteur News – Although $60.4 million was expended to purchase drugs and medical supplies by the Regional Administration of Region Three in 2017, it could not account for $4.1 million of the expenditure.
This issue was highlighted at the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) meeting on Wednesday when PAC member Dr. Vishwa Mahadeo questioned Regional Administration members on the Auditor General’s 2017 findings.
Dr. Mahadeo pointed out that $60.4 million was spent on drugs and medical supplies by the regional administration. He noted nonetheless that the voucher examinations revealed that $4.1 million worth in drugs and medical supplies purchased that year could not be traced to the goods received.
Additionally, the auditors discovered that nine payment vouchers totalling $10.4 million to purchase drugs and medical supplies could not be located. Dr. Mahadeo question whether the missing vouchers were ever recovered.
Officials from the Region Three administration, including Regional Executive Officer (REO) Jagnarine Somwar and former REO, Dennis Jaikarran, appeared before the PAC and were made to answer.
In response, the current REO said that some of the vouchers have actually been located. He explained: “We have been able to locate three of those vouchers… (totalling) $9.1 million,” the REO explained adding that “at this point in time, the goods received book is in place and will be examined.”
“Before that, there was no goods received book or if there were, we could not have found it. So, we have that in place. That would have been able to correct the situation from then,” he said.
The regional administrations have been under constant scrutiny when it comes to the purchase of drugs and medical supplies. In total the audit report outlined that, the Ministry of Health received fourteen requests totalling $1.789 billion from the 10 Administrative Regions in 2017.
The requests were intended for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies for the various health facilities in the Regions. However, a list of the drugs to be procured by each Region in support of the amounts requested to the Ministry was not provided for audit examination.
As a result, the sum of $1.747 billion was shown as expended by the Ministry, while the balance of $41.301M was retained in the Consolidated Fund.

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PAC grills Region three officials over purchase of drug supplies

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