Secret Cabinet missive exposes another drug scandal
…as Govt bypasses Tender Board to handpick ANSA McAL for $515M purchase
Despite pronouncements that Government breached the laws of Guyana to award a $605 million drug contract to one of its corporate supporters, the Administration has again sidelined the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) to once again sole source in excess of half a billion dollars in drugs from ANSA McAL.
The leaked secret Cabinet document outlines that the sub-committee considered and approved the procurement of emergency pharmaceuticals to the tune of $515.2 million.
The sole sourcing practice was a strategy vehemently railed against by the then Opposition, now governing coalition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC).
The request to bypass NPTAB was submitted by Finance Minister Winston Jordan and seeks to waive the competitive bidding and evaluation process in favour of sole sourcing the emergency supplies from ANSA McAL.
The award of the contract is reminiscent of a similar contract that was handed to ANSA McAL to the tune of $605 million, for which the Public Procurement Commission had launched an investigation and had found that there were breaches of Guyana’s procurement laws in order to facilitate the purchase.
ANSA McAL is the company that had built a multimillion-dollar arch, which was donated to the APNU/AFC Administration and subsequently erected on the East Coast Demerara (ECD) Highway.
The request was approved on Monday last and bears the signature of the Minister of State, Joseph Harmon and the decision circulated to the Ministers of Finance and Public Health.
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Image: Michael Swan (flickr)