Govt. picks New GPC for US$25 million drug purchases

Cabinet has once again promoted New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (GPC), as the nation’s sole pre-qualified supplier of drugs to the Government.
The announcement of the pre-qualification status for New GPC was made yesterday by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, at his post Cabinet press briefing.
New GPC is owned by Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop who happens to be the best friend of former President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
That company has been supplying the bulk of the drugs to Government for the past 15 years, ever since it was acquired by Ramroop in 1999.
Asked whether the decision to award New GPC was not tantamount to sole sourcing, given that the company would be the only one to get drug contracts, Dr. Luncheon disagreed.
He said that the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) picked New GPC from among seven companies that applied to be pre-qualified.
“Our result was that there is only one company that satisfied those requirements as far as NPTAB was concerned, and that was brought to Cabinet,” Luncheon explained.
When asked if the criteria used to pre-qualify a company were not biased in favour of New GPC, Luncheon said, “The criterion is biased in favour of safety.”
Dr. Luncheon explained, “I don’t want to convey that safety is the only criterion but safety is important.”
He drew reference to concerns related to counterfeit drugs.
According to Dr. Luncheon, “You are not going anywhere without addressing the issue of drug safety…There isn’t any country in the world that has the interests of its citizens at heart that don’t establish and enforce a significant array of measures that the supplier must meet to bring, to produce and to manufacture.”
Luncheon was asked if New GPC was benefiting because of the relationship that the owner shares with Jagdeo.
In response, he pointed to the level of investment by New GPC.
According to Dr. Luncheon, if a company wants to operate storage bonds outside of Guyana and further, and have a minimum amount of investments to support its market presence, “then you have to live with that.”
The spokesman also said if a company wants a commanding presence in the country then companies have to put the money in.
He said that when it comes to pharmaceuticals in Guyana, there is no doubt which company has made the investments and as a result who has a bigger share of the market.
According to Dr. Luncheon, “He, who invests and puts the money in, will have an expectation of getting the market share.”
The pre-qualification criteria which were used to allow New GPC to be chosen have been described by the Opposition as being “unreasonable” and tailor-made to have that company secure the status.
The list of companies that were pre-qualified to supply drugs expired since December.
Prior to inviting submissions for another round of pre-qualification, Government revised the criteria.
This led to the accusations that the government was positioning New GPC to be the only company meeting the requirements to win out.
Under the revised criteria, bidders must demonstrate a gross annual turnover of US$5 million and net assets of US$2.5 million.
Another criterion is that maximum score will be awarded to applicants who have paid $50M in Corporate taxes, annually.
Additionally, the company that has 50 or more employees, and warehousing capacity of 30,000 square feet in the city, will also gain an edge.
According to the revised prequalification criteria, maximum points will also be awarded in the evaluation process to the applicants who have been supplying Government for more than seven years without any negative reports.
New GPC has been a feature in the Auditor General’s report over the years with several instances focused on multi-million-dollar deficiencies in the procurement and supply of drugs to Government.
The purchase of drugs this year is expected to move past the US$25M.
The purchases have been a major source of contention between Government and the Opposition for years now because of the seeming close relationship between its main principal and the administration.