As the Ministry of Public Health prepares to roll out its new tender document for the procurement of pharmaceuticals, some suppliers still have concerns, with the timeframe given to supply items being chief among them.
The new tender document, for which a consultation was held in April, was unveiled yesterday in front of about 22 bidders, who gathered at the Cara Lodge Hotel.
The ministry placed an advertisement in the Guyana Chronicle yesterday calling on all suppliers of pharmaceuticals to attend a meeting at 9am “sharp.”
At least one supplier who attended indicated to Stabroek News that she had not seen the notice in the newspaper but had heard about the meeting through the grapevine. She wanted to know if one needed a special invitation to attend the meeting.
Yesterday’s meeting was for the 2017 tendering process, which is very late, according to Senior Technical Advisor of the USAID Supply Chain Project in Guyana, Cecil Jacques. Jacques noted that the laws demand that the invitation for bids be advertised for two weeks, that suppliers be given at least 21 days to respond, then the bids would have to be evaluated before the supplier would be given about 90 days to supply. It means that the 2017 pharmaceuticals will be arriving in November even as Jacques noted that some of the 2016 supplies have not yet been delivered “all because we were singing from different song sheets.”
A representative from the New GPC indicated that the three-month period to supply, as is contained in the tender document, may not be enough to access some of the items and suggested that four and a half months should be the minimum and six months the maximum.
“For some items, it might be impossible to supply them in three months…,” the representative said, before pointing out that suppliers would not know what is needed and depending on how many orders they have, there will be a waiting period as new orders would be placed at the bottom of the list.
While Jacques noted that the comment was valid, acting Permanent Secretary of the ministry Collette Adams quickly pointed out that at the last bidders’ meeting she had asked if persons were comfortable with the timelines given and this was factored into the tender document.
“So, we would have expected that when we give you the document you would have supplied based on our requirement, that’s one. Two, as I said to persons…you would have the chance to know that the bid document would be out in September, by September you should already be preparing to go to tender again. You know exactly that certain items would come again because that’s part of the essential drug base that we have…,” Adams said, by which time most of the suppliers started to grumble.
When she added that they could start preparing with their manufacturers “rather than waiting, you might not win but you still make some form of connection…,” the grumbling grew louder and one supplier referred to her comment as being “fairy tale language.”
“That is not valid?” she asked and all those present disagreed as one pointed out that there must be an amount given to the manufacturer before they start preparing as there is no “forecasting” in ordering pharmaceuticals.
Another concern was the fact that the tender document states that government agencies can now enter the bid process once they are legally and financially autonomous and operate under the commercial law. Jacques listed GuySuCo as an example of an entity that maybe eligible.
However, some bidders, especially the representative from New GPC, were concerned that the government can now become a competitor with local businesses but a ministry official stated that the government “has to protect itself.”
‘Flawed’
Meanwhile, Jacques, who has some 30 years of experience working in various aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, pointed out that USAID has been involved in the procurement of anti-retroviral and HIV commodities for the past 12 years in Guyana and for 11 of those years the aid agency had no involvement in the ministry’s procurement for essential medicines.
This changed in 2015, when the new government solicited assistance and in September that year the first open competitive tender document was written for the ministry to use and this was used in January of 2016.
“We are part of the process in professionalizing and restructuring the Ministry of Public Health’s procurement unit, so we’ll provide technical assistance to that unit using our wealth of experience and best practices,” Jacques said.
Explaining the process that led to the final tender document, Jacques said it is the first time in 22 years that the process of international competitive bidding was being employed.
Jacques said that some of the concerns from the four suppliers who won the bids for 2016 were articulated in the bid document, which has been now approved by National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) as well as the Public Procurement Commission.
Jacques stated that the standards of public procurement have risen and the players have to raise their levels, hence the 2017 document. Suppliers were advised to start practising supply chain management and “not buying and selling.”
Jacques explained that the suppliers would be informed of the country’s needs, then they would in turn inform their manufacturers and if they have the stock they would proceed to manufacture same or go to the API [active pharmaceutical ingredients] manufacturer to have it done. “This process doesn’t take a week, it doesn’t take a month…,” Jacques noted.
He said last year USAID spoke to all involved in the process and realized that the ministry’s public procurement process “was flawed.”
To strengthen the process, a document has been crafted that shows the work flow for the ministry in terms of its procurement process and when things will be done annually.
Since the annual budgetary allocation for the new year is now being read in November, Jacques noted that by January, when the allocations are approved for the new fiscal year, the Ministry of Health must be able to inform a supplier that it had won an award for a bid and give it the green light to buy.
That supplier would then have three months to deliver. For this to be done, the tender process must be done by September the previous year.
“Now you know this, you need to prepare for it. It is no longer we sit there waiting… this is not new, this is not rocket science, this is what is call procurement best practices. It is sad that USAID has been doing this for twelve years right here in Guyana but the ministry wasn’t doing…,” Jacques noted.
‘Get it right’
Meanwhile, Adams told the bidders that they must get it right before tendering. “We have to get it right before we go to tender, we don’t want to go to tender and then we have a lot of problems, so that is the reason why the 2017 list had some re-modification… before we can even decide to go online,” she said.
Adams added that a “bidders’ conference” will be held regularly so that they can be aware of new products, what manufacturers have available and what they can supply. She said too that pre-qualification would be done since it is recognized that if this is not done, “we will be continuously having to go through this over and over again.”
She said a pre-qualification advertisement would be placed so that the ministry can “quickly” get items from those pre-qualified suppliers.
While questions were allowed and asked, Adams made it clear from the commencement of the meeting that it didn’t mean “there would be a change again in the document but for clarity we would have that document presented to you.”
She said she hoped that every supplier would help to make the changes that “Guyana needs” and that as they enter into contracts they stick to the dates of delivery.
Adams also cautioned the suppliers not to believe the “rumours in the papers” and “false news” that the ministry has blacklisted persons since this has not been done and that they should instead pay attention to the needs of the people of Guyana and help the ministry to meet its target of making every citizen healthy.
