The Sussex Street building that is expected to be used as a storage bond for pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Public Health was only purchased by the owner of Linden Holding Company, Larry Singh on March 4, 2016 and the purchase price of $25 million is identical to the amount provided by the government as a deposit.
It would naturally raise questions of whether the government’s deposit was used to purchase the building and why the government would single-source a service from a company which did not have a building until March this year. The transport for the building was passed in July 2016.
According to information seen by this newspaper at the registry, Dennis Saffie Mohammed sold the building to Singh on March 4, 2016.
This latest information will now see Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton facing more questions, as he had told the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly that the government single-sourced the storage bond as it wanted to save the country’s coffers millions of dollars a month, since it was paying New GPC $19.2 million. The minister had said that the government would pay Linden Holding Company $12.5 million.
The minister was grilled on the issue on Monday during questioning of the line items in the financial paper covering the period of January to July, 2016 to the tune of $931,018,292, which was eventually approved.
Interestingly, according to the information provided on the paper, the government handed over $25 million to the company as a deposit. It also stated that $38.5 million was provided to the New GPC for the period March-June 2016. When he was asked about the disparity in the figure since he had previously said the company was charging $19.2 million a month, the minister had said that the Ministry of Public Health was only paying part of the rental fee. He did not say where the other part of the fee is being sourced. The financial paper had also indicated that part of that sum was also for rental to the Linden Holding Company for the month of July.
However, questions are being asked as to whether the ministry is indeed storing pharmaceuticals at the 29 Sussex Street, Charlestown location, since the building is still being renovated and from all appearances has not been in use. It also begs the question as to how the company was granted the lucrative contract in a single-source arrangement when it did not even have a bond at the time.
And while Dr Norton had said that the building met PAHO/WHO standards (he later said the international organization had not granted certification since it was not its mandate) he also said that its certification will be done by an agency that falls under his ministry.
A source from the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department said that its inspectors had not been asked to inspect the still under-construction storage bond even though the department is responsible for inspecting public storage bonds for pharmaceuticals.
“Contrary to the Food and Drugs regulation…, there has been no [request] to the department in the matter even though it has a legitimate role in the process,” a usually reliable source told Stabroek News.
Stabroek News had approached Singh on Tuesday at his office located in the upper flat of the building that once housed the Side Walk Café, which is owned by Minister of Telecommunications Cathy Hughes, but he refused to speak. Before a question could be asked the man aggressively informed that he had no comment and later told the reporter, “You can write what you want but right now you are trespassing.”
Meantime, the New GPC in a statement yesterday denied that it had received any rental fees for its bond.
“At this time, contrary to the asseverations of the Minister in Parliament, the New GPC has not received a single cent from the government for the rentals due since March 1, 2016 even though there are substantial quantities of pharmaceuticals being stored in the warehouse,” the company said in the statement.
According to the statement the company had been storing pharmaceuticals at its warehouse free of charge to the government for more than a decade up to March 1st 2016. It said that it invested hundreds of millions into the most extensive and modern warehousing facility for the government’s pharmaceuticals. The statement boasted that its storage warehouse facility of 70,000 square feet has the necessary “equipment, staff, IT, security, certification and sanitation to comply with WHO/PAHO standards.”
The company said it was after the ministry indicated substantive and substantial alterations in the old bidding procedure for pharmaceuticals on March 1, 2016, that it was approached to continue providing storage for pharmaceuticals and it was at this point the corporation indicated it would charge the government a rate of $237/sq foot for the state-of-the-art storage facility.
Previously the company, which manufactures pharmaceuticals, provided most of the drugs purchased for public hospitals and clinics, which meant that it would have earned substantial sums under the single-source arrangements and as such would have stored the drugs it provided. This practice was discontinued under the current administration and it would have been at this point that the company would have called for the rental fees.
