NEW GPC responds to “sole sourcing” claims of pharmaceuticals peddled by Opposition and its media arms KN and SN

The NEW GPC INC is once again being falsely accused of benefiting from “sole sourcing” in its supply of pharmaceuticals to the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

This has been repeatedly refuted by several stakeholders – including the Ministry of Health, the Secretary to the Cabinet and indeed, the NEW GPC itself, over the years.

The company republishes the information below because it concerns a matter that is life and death to Guyanese – the pharmaceutical supply chain – which should not be made into a political football.

Ministry of Health statement

The truth is that the procurement of medicines and medical supplies by the Ministry of Health and the GPHC is strictly in accordance with the laws of Guyana, with recommendations from the Auditor General’s Report and with good supply chain management practices.

The Ministry of Health and the GPHC procure medicines and medical supplies through two mechanisms:

Medicines and certain medical supplies are procured through a list of prequalified suppliers. This list of prequalified suppliers has been determined after an open tender process, using public tendering modelled after a World Health Organisation (WHO) model and recommended specifically by the World Bank.

Certain specialised medicines, laboratory supplies and medical supplies are procured through regular, open tender as the need arises.

NEW GPC

Following the recommendation of the Auditor General, in 2010 medicines and certain medical supplies began to be procured through a list of prequalified suppliers.

Between 2011 and 2013, four international entities:

Pan-American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO)

United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

International Dispensary Association (IDA)

and two local ones, MediPharm and NEW GPC, were prequalified under the stated criteria.

For the years 2014-2016, there has been an advertisement soliciting suppliers from Guyana and members of Caricom to be prequalified and be added to the list of international suppliers. Seven companies applied and, the NEW GPC was the only one that fulfilled the publicly stated criteria according to WHO and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards.

HPS

Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr Roger Luncheon also set the record straight. He affirmed that neither the Health Ministry nor the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) is sole-sourcing drugs for the GPHC or the Ministry of Health from the NEW GPC.

He said that any drugs procured by the Government are subject to a competitive pricing process with international suppliers.

Any time, a local provider is selected, that provider’s submission has to be competitive vis-à-vis international providers, the HPS informed.

The international providers used as benchmarks are the same ones enumerated above.

In order for a company to be awarded a contract to provide drugs, it has to offer a more competitive price than those companies. If any of those companies offers better prices than the other bids submitted, then Government is obligated on the basis of the country’s pricing policy, to go with the lowest bid.

This, the HPS, affirmed, is a competitive component of procurement and not sole-sourcing.

The NEW GPC wishes to emphasise the importance of Guyana sticking to WHO/World Bank standards that were formulated after tragic disasters in the Third World issuing from counterfeit and sub-standard pharmaceuticals entering the supply chain. Additionally, local capacity building in this crucial area of national life is enhanced.