The Auditor General has reported that while $14.07 billion was allocated to the Ministry of Health for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies in 2021, over $1.2 billion of purchased items are yet to be delivered.
The finding was contained in the Auditor General’s report for the fiscal year ending December 2021. The report was laid in the National Assembly on Monday.
According to the report, the sum of $7.3 billion was allotted to the Ministry along with two supplementary transfers of $80.7 million and $6.6 billion, respectively. This represents a 73% increase in allotment, when compared to the previous year’s expenditure of $8.122 billion.
An analysis of the payments revealed that amounts totalling $13.893 billion were expended by the Ministry. The Auditor General said that an examination of the contracts showed that the largest awards were made to the New GPC amounting to $7.314 billion. It said that amounts totalling $6.631 billion were paid to the supplier which includes prior year’s payments of $683m.
At the time of the compilation of the report, the Auditor General said that supplies valued at $478.9 million were yet to be delivered. In response, the Ministry said that the remaining deliveries are still ongoing due to logistical constraints that would have impacted the entire supply chain negatively.
Another supplier, Western Scientific Company received $3.2 billion in contracts but did not deliver supplies worth $695.6 million. Again, the Ministry said that logistics constraints were to be blamed.
Massy Distributors are yet to deliver some $38.215 million worth of reagents for the Abbott Architect i1000 Analyser. The Ministry explained that it procured an Abbot analyser in the year 2021 for which reagents were required, however these reagents could’ve only been delivered after the machine was fully operational at the National Blood Transfusion Service. Additionally, due to the shelf life of these reagents, they were staggered with the intention of having a decrease in expiration. As such, the supplier provided a bank guarantee to mobilize 100% payment on the conclusion of the contract.
“A contract was entered on 3 November 2021 for the supplies of items including HbA1C Pointe Control Set, Albumin Kits, Calcium Kits, Protein Kits, and other medical test kits, in the sum of $19.384M. The full contract sum was paid on 7 December 2021. At the time of reporting, items to the value of $1.165M were still to be delivered,” the report highlighted.
The Ministry was also flagged for its sole sourcing of 400,000 vials of the Sputnik vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. An amount of 305,536 was delivered, leaving a balance of 94,464 not delivered. The sum of $409.041 million was refunded to the Consolidated Fund and a special audit is ongoing.
