In what seems to be a developing trend this year, the findings of the 2023 Auditor General’s Report on the Account of Ministries, Departments and Regions has been disputed by the Ministry of Health as it relates to the matter of expired drugs.
Unfortunately for the ministry, the audit cycle permitted enough time and opportunity to dispute the findings of the audit office but this was apparently not done. This means that the Auditor General’s version stands and the ministry will have to defend itself before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament whenever it gets up to date with its work. Contemporaneous examination of the Auditor General’s report is vital to addressing issues such as the reported billions of dollars in expired drugs over the 18 months leading to June this year. Perhaps, in the interim, the Office of the Auditor General may see the need to apprise the public of the basis of its findings.
By the same token, the swift response by the Ministry of Health that the Auditor General’s declaration is at variance with the truth surely demands a deeper probe. Two things should be said at this juncture. The first is that the Ministry of Health has been, over the years, no stranger to circumstances in which it ends up with considerable quantities of expired drugs on is hands. This, surely, raises questions about the likely veracity of its challenge to what the Auditor General’s office had to say and about systemic issues in drug procurement management despite assurances.
There have been, over time, vigorous and repeated public discourses over the administration of drugs acquired at considerable cost and which have (as far as we are customarily told) ended up in bonds to await determination on the matter of disposal. Here one might add that it is not uncommon for there to be occasions on which reports surface about the application of drugs in the state health care system long after they have left their ‘sell by’ dates behind.
Were a national poll to be conducted on the issue of this latest disclosure on expired drugs ending up in the state health system what we are probably likely to see is a wholesale ‘ticking’ of the box beside which is pencilled `Not Interested’. And why should anyone be interested, anyway? After all, these days, we are rolling in ‘oil money’ anyway and rather than bellyache over the frittering away of ‘millions’ it is not unlikely that the box that would be most frequently ticked would be the one beside which is printed `weh da come mo deh’.
Put differently, one gets the feeling that, increasingly, some of our institutions that are responsible for state accountability run the risk of being progressively disconnected from the wider accountability regimen that ought, correctly, to apply but which we appear to have been leaving behind.
Here, one feels that the Ministry of Health’s flat denial of the Office of the Auditor General’s assertion regarding the billions of dollars in drugs had expired between 2023 and June this year may well be a ‘prove it’ gambit by the Ministry in circumstances where it resembles the kind of charge that may well be difficult to prove. An election year is approaching.
Some of the issues that have arisen at the Ministry of Health in the matter of the administration of drugs have to do with the Ministry undertaking surveys in order to determine the supply needs of state institutions and the creation of an effective storage regime for drugs in order to reduce losses through expiration.
The available evidence based on what, all too frequently, are the pointed criticisms of the Ministry of Health’s drugs administration regime would appear to suggest that not a great deal is happening within the Ministry of Health to place it in a position where it can effectively fend off the charges associated with the administration of drugs.
The danger here is that ‘oil money’ is having the effect of causing profligate spending and a lack of accountability to become increasingly acceptable in circumstances where state liquidity can briskly cover up the faults.
What does not serve the Ministry of Health well in these situations is that it has long become daubed with brush of questionable practices in relation to the administration of drugs acquired for state-run hospitals. There are simply too many reports of accountability issues and of alleged links between the Ministry’s drugs distribution and ‘handlers’ who have no official connection to the state health system.