On 22 July 2014, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) announced that only one company met the prequalification requirements for the supply of drugs and medical supplies to the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Hospital. The HPS disclosed that Cabinet offered its no-objection to the recommendation of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB). The company will therefore be the only local supplier for the next three years, joining five specialized agencies from overseas that were prequalified previously.
Some eight months earlier, the Ministry of Health had advertised for manufacturers and suppliers of pharmaceutical products to apply for prequalification based on a revised set of criteria. In the previous prequalification exercise covering the period 2011 to 2014, suppliers were required to fill out a four-part questionnaire dealing with information relating their business, manufacturing capability, quality control and product details. There was, however, no indication in the package of prequalification documents as to the agreed evaluation criteria to be used to enable prospective suppliers to ascertain how they would be evaluated. The only exception was that a supplier must be able to supply 75 per cent of the required items.
Revised Evaluation Criteria
Section 6 (5) of the Procurement Act states that in reaching a decision regarding the qualifications of each supplier or contractor, the