Stabroek News, Kaieteur News peddle lies about NEW GPC

… as Govt seeks to keep pharma supply chain intact

In a banner headline Saturday, the Stabroek News screamed, “Over Gy$2B speeded up for NEW GPC INC – no drugs supplied yet”. It was a clear effort to smear the NEW GPC, the company which had emerged as the only one of the seven bidders in 2014 to fulfil the World Health Organisation/Wor-ld Bank inspired National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) criteria to become pre-qualified to supply pharmaceuticals to the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. The Stabroek News was absolutely wrong on both claims of its headline.

Alleging that it was quoting an “unknown source” at the Ministry of Finance, the Stabroek News alleged that it was told that “a cheque equivalent to US$6,730,526.15 was made out by the Ministry of Finance and delivered to the NEW GPC for the third and final set of payments for drugs to the Health Ministry.”

Contacted by the Guyana Times, sources at the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Ministry of Finance and the NEW GPC were adamant that there was no such cheque for such an amount. Both the MOH and NEW GPC officials also agreed that there had been partial shipments on contracts given to the NEW GPC and payments were made in accordance with the one-twelfth (1/12) monthly releases from the Ministry of Finance.

The Ministry of Health official noted, “We are in the business of saving lives and ensuring that the health of the Guyanese populace is enhanced. To order and have drugs supplied is the prudent thing to do since the country needs medicines and lives will be put at risk if the supply chain is interrupted or delayed. With the Budget not passed, are we to allow people to die?”

But it was clear that in the run up to the elections, the Stabroek News was trying to create a bigger wave of sensationalism than even its tabloid counterpart the Kaieteur News did with its headline, “Government shovels US$12.8 million contract to NEW GPC”. The Kaieteur News was regurgitating announcements made by Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon that Cabinet had given its “no-objection” to three contracts for pharmaceuticals. Evidently copies of the three contracts were leaked to an Opposition Internet blog site and were picked up by the two Opposition newspapers. Violating most of the norms of professional journalism, the Stabroek News regularly recycles opinions passed off as “News” from blog sites.

Since last July, Dr Luncheon had announced that NEW GPC was the only company that was pre-qualified to supply the large contracts of pharmaceuticals and had challenged the Trinidad Company ANSA McAL to produce to the public the bid it had submitted to the Tender Board. “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,” according to Dr    Luncheon.

Asked whether the criteria used to pre-qualify a company were biased in favour of NEW GPC, the same claim that the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News are making once again, the Cabinet Secretary had replied,  “The criteria are biased in favour of safety.”

ANSA McAL has yet to provide evidence that its bid had satisfied all the criteria, but yet its partisans continue with the old claims.

It should be of interest to Guyanese that Guyanese pharma companies cannot bid for supplying pharmaceuticals to the Trinidad public health system, yet both the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News have taken up cudgels for ANSA McAL to enter Guyana’s supply chain without even fulfilling the World Bank/WHO criteria adopted by the NPTAB.

The NEW GPC pays millions in taxes, provides employment for hundreds and supplies world-class products to the global market.