NEW GPC denounces “process of disinformation”

“Campaign to destroy the company will not succeed” – Dr Ramroop

Chairman of the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (NEW GPC) Dr Ranjisinghi Ramroop came out swinging against the Kaieteur News for what he deemed to be “a vicious process of disinformation against NEW GPC”.
He vowed, however that “the campaign to destroy the company will not succeed.” Taking on the Kaieteur News specifically, which had blared on its front page “Importers cry foul at US6.5 million secret pharmaceutical award to Ramroop’s NEW GPC”, Dr Ramroop declared, “Let me explain to you. ‘Disinformation’ is different from ‘misinformation’. The latter is information that in unintentionally false; the former is deliberate.”
“Take that KN headline and the accompanying article. It shows that Kaieteur News and its principals are not just sloppy journalists but they are actively conducting a process of disinformation against NEW GPC with the intent to destroy it.”

Asked to elaborate, the medical doctor who bought the moribund Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation back in 1999 and turned it into a vibrant world-class corporation, explained, “First let us look at the headline itself. What is ‘secret’ about the award of a contract when the secretary of the Cabinet, Dr Roger Luncheon, announced it at his regular weekly press briefing?”
Clearly exasperated, Dr Ramroop continued, “Then there is the ridiculous claim that ‘importers’ complained. What importers? I only saw the IPA saying they were trying to get information from Dr Bheri Ramsarran (the health minister). As for KN, I know they’re fully cognisant of the process, but this is the disinformation they want to spread to destroy our reputation.
“For drugs of a certain nature and volume, there is a very rigorous procurement process. Drugs and medicines are not plastic buckets which every Tom, Dick and Harry can import and store in their bottom house. The Health Ministry has used eight criteria according to WHO standards – including manufacturing capacity, warehousing capacity, quality control personnel, facilities and SOPs etc – that they use to prequalify suppliers for pharmaceuticals.

“The bottom line is that IPA applied and failed to prequalify.  NEW GPC was one of two local companies to qualify – the other was Medipharm – along with international giants like PAHO, IDA, UNICEF, UNDP.
“When the bids of the type under scrutiny come up, only the prequalified companies are informed. Importers of plastic buckets are not considered. But IPA should maybe explain how even though they have failed to qualify; they still secure contracts for millions of dollars of pharmaceuticals that are never mentioned by KN.
“What makes the constant attacks by KN irksome is that we’re the only pharmaceutical manufacturing company that complies with the most rigorous Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) standards of the industry. We export worldwide. We bring in foreign exchange. To achieve this in Guyana is a tremendous achievement from even the standpoint of retaining qualified personnel. We employ approximately 180 people.
“Let me say that NEW GPC is still the first and only company in the Caribbean to manufacture anti-retrovirals (ARVs) for Guyana’s HIV infected patients. And for the record, let’s not forget that NEW GPC had to intervene to avert a national crisis when IPA failed to supply ARVs for which they had been awarded. Now that’s something to look into.”
He continued, “If Guyana is to ever develop from being a producer of primary products that only pays minimum wages, it will have to compete with the world in producing value added goods. NEW GPC has been able to succeed in a most technical field.”
He added; “Unless the government can introduce controls over the spreading of such vicious propaganda and lies against those that not only survive but prevail over the constraints in Guyana, we will always remain second rate. We will become a plastic bucket economy.”