February 14 ,2021
Western Scientific, a Trinidadian company debarred by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for fraudulent practices, and the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (NGPC) received the lion’s share of contracts for over $5 billion in pharmaceuticals and medical supplies sales over the past four months, documents have revealed.
The documents from the Ministry of Health (see table), seen by Sunday Stabroek, show that the two companies dominated awards for COVID-19 emergency supplies and pharmaceuticals, even as other bidders have complained that they are yet to be notified as is required under the Procurement Act. Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony told this newspaper that Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Health Malcolm Watkins would explain the details of the awards.
However, continuous attempts to contact Watkins proved futile. However, this newspaper was asked to email questions to the PS. Up to press time, no response had been received.
Separately, the contract for the supply and delivery of female condoms MMU-17-2020-P2 was annulled. “As such you are discharged from the obligations to perform any covenants and liabilities. Kindly pick up your bid security upon presentation of a form of identification, at the Ministry of Health Head Office…,” bidders for that contract were told.
Sole-sourcing
The health care sector, in particular, has seen procurement scandals under both the PPP/C and the former APNU+AFC administrations, with medical emergencies being cited on many occasions as the justification for the sole-sourcing of supplies.
The award of contracts for the procurement of medical supplies by the Ministry of Health and the procurement of pharmaceuticals by the Georgetown Public Hospital have come under scrutiny from some of the bidders who are still awaiting notice of the awards.
This newspaper last week reported that billions of dollars in contracts were awarded for pharmaceuticals and medical emergency supplies but details of these awards have not been made public, as is required under law.
In November of last year, the invitation for bids were announced by the Ministry of Health and the GPHC.
The ministry, which sought to procure COVID-19 medical supplies, stated that bidding would be conducted through the National Competitive Bidding procedure as per the Procurement Act of 2003.
Some of the items required were infrared thermometers, pulse oximeters, goggles, face shields, particulate respirators, face masks, shoe covers, insolation theatre gowns, protective medical coveralls, disposable gloves, disposable lab coats, surgical gowns, and pleated bouffant caps.
The evaluation criteria stated that the bidders must “demonstrate experience and technical capacity by providing documentary evidence that shows the supply of goods/services similar to the items in the requirement schedule”.
Bidders had to also “provide copies of contracts with previous clients or copies of valid invoices showing items supplied to clients” and “demonstrate the experience of supplying goods/services to a minimum” value set out.
The bids were opened on November 18th and among the bidders was the Trinidad and Tobago firm Western Scientific, which had been previously blacklisted by the IDB. A Board of Inquiry had recommended that Guyana also blacklist the company.
The APNU+AFC government had come in for strong criticism in 2017 when it single-sourced a contract, valued $134 million to the company.
Western Scientific was also one of a number of companies identified in Parliament by former Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence as having delivered expired or nearly expired drugs to the ministry. The bid was in two lots at US$27.8M and US$31.5M respectively.
‘Locked in’
However, a senior government source explained to this newspaper that Western Scientific continues to receive contracts because it is “locked in” given that the firm had years ago sold government lab equipment that requires reagents for which the company is the sole distributor.
“You could not have had an unresponsive tender because they are the only company that has the authorization to sell specific reagents for lab equipment that government had invested hundreds of millions of dollars for. So we are locked in and are left to the mercy of them on pricing of those [reagents] also. It is not an easy situation,” the source, who has knowledge of the transactions, stated.
“It is something that Guyana will have to look at but the country would have to invest millions again, money I am sure it doesn’t have to waste, to buy new equipment and all of that. It is an issue that will have to be looked at though,” the source added.
But local drug company officials here argue that the company did not only bid for medical consumables as they were also awarded contacts for pharmaceuticals. “That reasoning from the past or present government is rubbish. Okay, let us take that they supply the reagents. Why is it then that they are winning contracts to supply other pharmaceuticals,” one company official asked.
“From the information there, it is clear to see that this is likely to be the trend that these two companies will continue to dominate getting all the awards and small local companies would not get anything. This doesn’t encourage local companies to bid at all because they will just be wasting their resources and time. I am so disappointed. If you were to go back, small companies used to get a bite, even though you know what happened with the big share but at least you could keep your head above water,” another company representative said.
Another pharmaceutical distributor also declined commenting on the record saying that it is a waste of time to report their complaints to the Public Procurement Commission since there is no record of any award being annulled and retendered.
“I hope people will continue to monitor the trend. There is always something with drug procurement, something. You say there are avenues to register complaints and correctly so but what happens. You ever saw any of those contracts annulled and a new person getting it? That is wishful thinking for a society where systems work. This is Guyana and we might as well first start with getting a system to show people who get what. When that is done, you can come back and talk to me. I fed up…,” the businessman said.
Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh has assured that bidders for awards will soon see the results of tenders as the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board is in the process of building a portal to publish awards.
“It is an issue that came to me and I raised this issue as well that we are required to publish the awards as mandated by law,” Singh had told Stabroek News.
“For whatever reason they have not been publishing as is required. I raised this with the NPTAB Board and my position is that they must comply. It is to this end that they are currently working on an online portal to have this addressed. They will publish all things required by the Procurement Act,” he added.
