Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton has said that he will apologize to the National Assembly and by extension the nation of Guyana for providing the committee of supply with inaccurate information about a controversial contract for the storage of pharmaceuticals.
In an invited comment on the issue, Norton told Stabroek News, “The Cabinet sub-committee which was appointed to review the matter has included that among its recommendations and I’m a team player so I will comply with the recommendation.”
Asked when and how he will proffer the recommended apology, Norton said he is in the process of delivering same to the Speaker of the House. He did not provide a specific date for the delivery of the apology.
Norton was taken to task in the National Assembly when he told the House, on August 8 that the drugs were being stored in a bond at Lot 29 Sussex Street, Albouystown, where $12.5 million monthly was being paid to the new rental company identified as Linden Holdings.
According to Norton, government was paying the New GPC $19.2 million a month to store the pharmaceuticals and wanted a cheaper facility. He said that with the “exorbitant price called by the New GPC” there was an urgency to find new storage.
It later emerged that the new facility was in fact a converted house and more so, was still being renovated. In the light of the ensuing controversy, President David Granger appointed a Cabinet Sub-Committee to review, examine and report on the storage of medicine and medical supplies.
Sub-Committee Chair-man Raphael Trotman later told the public that Norton had misled the National Assembly during his answers and called on him to issue a public apology. He also said that the Sub-Committee advised that the deal for the Sussex Street premises should be reviewed.
However, Trotman dismissed the fact that the government’s advance to Linden Holdings Inc and the cost of the bond were the same as a mere coincidence. “I see it as nothing more than a coincidence that the price paid and the price of the security deposit and the first month’s rental are the same,” he said.
Observers said the coincidence could lead to the impression that the government had financed the purchase of the bond for a businessman who would then profit off the arrangement.
The APNU+AFC government’s single sourcing of the contract to businessman Lawrence Singh, who has had no previous involvement in the storage of pharmaceuticals, has also raised questions about who in the administration made the initial connection with him.
In addition, former auditor general Anand Goolsarran had said that a Sub-Committee of Cabinet should not have been reviewing the controversial deal as it was Cabinet which had been reported to have had made the decision to sign off on the rental in the first place.
Meanwhile, speaking on “The Public Interest” last Friday, Granger said the Public Health Ministry had to think about timing. “They had to think about short-term storage of drugs and that led to the adoption or quest for a new bond under Linden Holdings, a new company. It was an act driven by necessity, not by any kind of perversity. It was an act done because the old arrangement, single sourcing, was brought to an end and once the corporation that was the beneficiary of that system discovered that, they imposed what was called punitive rates and the government had no choice but to seek a new bond to store pharmaceuticals,” he asserted.
