ANSA McAL is dodging the issue

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor,

I would like to comment on the article “ANSA McAL questions exclusion from drug supply pre-qualification… says facilities not checked during evaluation process”. I am a Guyanese who spent some time in Trinidad and was employed in a pharmacy, as I am now, that I am back in Guyana.

First, I would like to say that over in Trinidad, the bidding is controlled by the National Insurance Property Development Company Limited (NIPDEC), with which all prospective suppliers have to register. Their registration form asks for the “nationality” of the company and every year, only Trinidadian forms are accepted to supply the pharmaceuticals for that country’s Health Ministry. This is the same for all of the countries in Caricom.

I hope that some of the Guyanese companies that I am sure placed bids for supplying those countries’ pharmaceuticals would raise their voices now. What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. While I am all for Caricom, I would give some priority to firms that employ Guyanese in the process or invest in the necessary infrastructure.

The second thing I want to say is that I wish the companies that lost out in the pre-qualification exercise would conduct themselves in a professional way. ANSA McAL, for instance, claimed they have the “temperature controlled” warehousing for “some drugs”. It pointed out that it provides some internationally branded pharmaceuticals and they would not have gotten this prerogative if they couldn’t store the drugs.

But ANSA McAL is dodging the issue. The pre-qualification is not for “some drugs” but for ALL the drugs in the country. Would ANSA McAL say whether they have the temperature-controlled warehousing to have all the drugs before they are distributed to the Government??

As a person with some background in pharmacy, proper temperature regulated storage of all pharmaceuticals, prolong their life and efficacy. The evaluators would have read in the application form the warehousing space that each company had in Guyana.

I wish that the “losing companies” would state honestly where they fell short in each of the criteria which make the process easy to compare. After all, they still obtain a substantial part of the pharmaceutical contracts through direct bidding.

Pharmaceuticals are literally a matter of life and death and I hope that our Government doesn’t hold on to its stated open criteria.

Sincerely,

Suresh Ganesh

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